UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi everyone, I'm completely new to the board and to UNIX and I have the following question regarding a script I am building.

I am trying to copy an entire directory into a new directory and I was wondering if there is any way of printing on screen a progress report, for example a percentage. It doesn't HAVE to be a percentage, but something to that effect (like a count-down) would also do nicely.

Does enyone know how to do this?

Thank you in advance

Can you post your script?
If you are using for loop to loop thru all sub-directories, for copying, then keep directory count and display that count as process indicator.

Regards,
Yeheya

here's the crucial bit


if test -f /u/ttc/
then #File or directory exists so ask for confirmation

echo -n "Ready to begin copy, continue? [y/n]"; read choice
if [ "$choice" -eq y ] || [ "$choice" -eq Y]; then echo "Copying files"
cp -r $livecomp $copycomp
mv -r $livecomp $tempcomp

As you see, I'm not using a for loop...

Well, this isn't a countdown, but if all you want is to show that progress is being made, you could always include an echo command in your code..

Code:

cp -r $livecomp $copycomp
mv -r $livecomp $tempcomp
echo -n "."

After each file is moved, a dot will appear on the screen, giving output like this:
............

that would be fine, except there are several thousand files that have to be moved and it's usually left overnight and checked remotely.... :/

Would it be possible to do a file count and then show a file count down? eg 'File xxxx of xxxx coppied'

Just a thought from the old BASIC days

if [ test -f /u/ttc/ ]
then
echo "Ready to begin copy, continue? [y/n]" ; read choice

if [ "$choice" -eq y ] || [ "$choice" -eq Y]
then
DIR_COUNT=`wc -l /u/ttc/`
TOTAL=$DIR_COUNT
echo "Directory Count is ${DIR_COUNT}. Begining Copy"

while [ $DIR_COUNT -gt 0 ]
do
echo " Copying file $DIR_COUNT of $TOTAL"
cp -r $livecomp $copycomp
mv -r $livecomp $tempcomp
let DIR_COUNT=$DIR_COUNT-1
done

Check syntax as I just quickly typed this out..there are better ways to do this, this is just to give you an idea of how to go about implementing your fix. You may also want to invest in some error checking following the copy command (unless of course you are running as root). Also, you may want to change the -eq to = since you are comparing a string an not an integer. Another point would be to log the events in your script (which Im sure you are doing )

thanks man, I'll test it