Shell Programming and Scripting

I'm be tempted to tackle the problem like this:

Code:

cd /dir1/dir2/save

for file in *_v2
do
   [ -f "$file" ] && cp "$file" ..
done

On GNU systems I'd probably do:

Code:

find /dir1/dir2/save -name "*_v2" -print0 | xargs --no-run-if-empty -0 cp -t /dir1/dir2

I went with bakunin's suggestion since there are multiple sub-directories underneath /dir1/dr2/save and I want to copy the files ending _v2 outside of save and keep the directory structure.

bakunin, could you please explain the magic behind this line:

Code:

outfile="${infile%%/save*}${infile#*save}"

Thank you!

---------- Post updated at 06:44 AM ---------- Previous update was at 03:43 AM ----------

Is there a way of removing _v2 from the end of the file in the line below?

Code:

outfile="${infile%%/save*}${infile#*save}"

How about

Code:

outfile=${outfile%_v2}

?

man bash: "Parameter Expansion" is a good reading for this...

The following did the trick:

Code:

print - cp "$infile" "${outfile%%_v2}"

Thank you!

I don't think the second % is needed as you want to remove one single occurrence only.

Hi RudiC,
You are correct. The commands:

Code:

print - cp "$infile" "${outfile%%_v2}"
        and:
print - cp "$infile" "${outfile%_v2}"

produce exactly the same results in this case.

Hi ejianu,
Even though both forms produce the same results in this case, I personally prefer to use the % version (like RudiC suggestion in post #10) instead of the %% version you used in post #11 when there is only one possible match.

The difference between the two cases is apparent when the given pattern can match more than once. For example, the following commands:

Code:

x=abc.def.ghi
echo ${x%%.*} ${x%.*}

produce the output:

Code:

abc.def abc

because %% removes the longest match for .* from the end of $x and % removes the shortest match for .* from the end of $x. (Note that the patterns used in ${var%%pattern} and ${var%pattern} are filename matching patterns; not basic regular expressions and not extended regular expressions.)

Hope this helps,
Don