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# 1  
Old 06-19-2009
Find all text files in folder and then copy to a new folder
Hi all,

*I use Uwin and Cygwin emulator.

Iīm trying to search for all text files in the current folder (C/Files) and its sub folders using

Code:
find  -depth -name "*.txt"

The above command worked for me, but now I would like to copy all found text files to a new folder (C/Files/Text) with

Code:
find  -depth -name "*.txt" -type d -exec cp {} Text \;

But this command itīs not working even when replace Text with C/Files/Text.

Please somebody could give an advice about this.

Thanks in advance.
# 2  
Old 06-19-2009
type should be -f...
and in my system, i need to write like find . -depth....
# 3  
Old 06-19-2009
Hey thanks rakeshawasthi.

I changed to option -f and didnīt work for me.

Code:
 
find  -depth -name "*.txt" -type -f -exec cp {} Text \; #doesnīt show any pritn out.
("Text" is the folder where I want to send the found files and Iīm not sure if it is the correct syntax).

the first part works percfectly

Code:
find  -depth -name "*.txt" # Works nice showing found files

But my attempt to copy the txt files found to a new folder is failing
I donīt know why.

Maybe you experts could solve this pending issue to my problem.

Thanks in advance,
# 4  
Old 06-20-2009
You could try:

Code:
tar cf - $(find . -name *.txt) | (cd /new_dir; tar xf -)

1. I don't know how it might work with Uwin / Cygwin as I never use them
2. It might break if the arg list is too big (i.e. when you have too many txt files)
3. It keeps the same heirarchy (which you may not want)

So...
Code:
find . -name *.txt -exec cp {} Test \;

as you originally had, should work fine!

It doesn't print any output because you didn't ask it to...

Code:
find . -name *.txt -print -exec cp {} Test \;

Last edited by Scott; 06-20-2009 at 07:54 AM..
# 5  
Old 06-20-2009
Hi scottn,

Thanks for your very good answer. It help me a lot to follow what I wanted. It looks the option "-type" was not correct in this search in my original script.

Obtained results:

Code:
find . -name "*.txt" -print -exec cp {} "C:\My Dir\New Dir" \;# It works
#In Uwin -name is insentive, takes *txt and *TXT, but Cygwin only takes *.txt

Code:
find . -name "*.txt" -exec cp {} "C:\My Dir\New Dir" \; # It works
#In Uwin -name is insentive, takes *txt and *TXT, but Cygwin only takes *.txt

Code:
find -depth -name "*.txt" -exec cp {} "C:\My Dir\New Dir" \; # It works
#In Uwin -name is insentive, takes *txt and *TXT, but Cygwin only takes *.txt


Code:
 
tar cf - $(find . -name *.txt) | (cd "C:\My Dir\New Dir"; tar xf -)# Doesnīt work for me for reasons below
#find: paths must precede expression: input1.txt
#Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|e
#path...] [expression]
#tar: Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive
#Try `tar --help' or `tar --usage' for more information.
#tar: This does not look like a tar archive
#tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

rakeshawasthi and scottn, thanks both for help to get my desired result.

Smilie

Best regards
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