Shell Programming and Scripting

hello all,

this topic might have been discussed but I couldn't find it with searching.

I am trying to do a for command that will dos2unix files one by one and save it under directory called backup (backup is in the same directory with other files). When I do:

Code:

for i in *
do
  dos2unix $i backup/"$i"
done

this will try to copy/dos2unix the backup directory itself too. Since it can't do it, it stops copying files. I know there is a way to specify in unix; like: everything but not something. In the above command I should be able to say

Code:

for i in * but not backup 
do
   cp files under backup
done

so that It will skip when encountered to backup directory file.

I hope I made sense...

You can try looking up the test command

you can use the if statement which also supports NOT,AND and OR.
Check you shell manuals for syntax e.g. man sh, man ksh, man csh

Here are some things you can check for with test
-r filename
True if filename exists and is readable.
-w filename
True if filename exists and is writable.
-x filename
True if filename exists and is executable.
-f filename
True if filename exists and is a regular file.
-d filename
True if filename exists and is a directory.
-h filename
True if filename exists and is a symbolic link.
With all other primitives (except -L filename),
the symbolic links are followed by default.
-s filename
True if filename exists and has a size greater
than zero.
-z s1 True if the length of string s1 is zero.

Code:

for i in !(dos2unix)
do
  dos2unix $i backup/"$i"
done

Works in ksh and probably bash. !(x) == "everything but x".

unfortunately, it doesn't work in bash shell, which is my favorite..

Code:

$ for i in !(backup); do dos2unix $i backup/"$i" ; done
bash: !: event not found

Thanks though, that was a good one...

Bummer. Then I'd say to go with a test:

Code:

for i in *
do
  if [[ $i != dos2unix ]]; then
    dos2unix $i backup/"$i"
  fi
done

Code:

#!/bin/ksh
#
for i in *
do  
 if [ ! -d $i ] 
 then 
  dos2unix $i backup/"$i"
 fi 
done