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Full Discussion: Remove spaces between file names
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Remove spaces between file names Post 302301925 by bakunin on Sunday 29th of March 2009 09:08:40 AM
Old 03-29-2009
The problem with your code is that the shell uses whitespace to delimit words.

Suppose you have a file named "two words", and you write a command like "cp two words" - how is the shell supposed to know wether you want the file "two" copied to "words" or if you are talking about the file "two words" and the second argument is missing?

The same is true for the for-loop, which passes one argument at a time to the content of the loop - and "one argument" is "one word", because this is where the stream the for-loop works on was split at.

So, here is a script which relies on exactly this mechanism:

Code:
#!/usr/bin/ksh

typeset oldfile=""
typeset newfile=""

# the grep filters for filenames with spaces only:
ls -1 | grep "[^ ] [^ ]" | while read oldfile ; do
     newfile="$( print - $oldfile | tr -d ' ')"
     print - "mv \"${oldfile}\" \"${newfile}\"" # just display, next line is working
     # mv "$oldfile" "$newfile"
done

By the way: do not use for-loops to process lists of unknown length, like a directory listing. If the list grows too long it will exceed your maximum line length (see syslimits.h) and your code will break. Using a while-loop removes this risk.

I hope this helps.

bakunin
 

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LEARN ABOUT MINIX

cp

CP(1)							      General Commands Manual							     CP(1)

NAME

       cp, cpdir - file copy

SYNOPSIS

       cp [-pifsmrRvx] file1 file2
       cp [-pifsrRvx] file ... directory
       cpdir [-ifvx] file1 file2

OPTIONS

       -p     Preserve full mode, uid, gid and times

       -i     Ask before removing existing file

       -f     Forced remove existing file

       -s     Make similar, copy some attributes

       -m     Merge trees, disable the into-a-directory trick

       -r     Copy directory trees with link structure, etc. intact

       -R     Copy directory trees and treat special files as ordinary

       -v     Display what cp is doing

       -x     Do not cross device boundaries

EXAMPLES

       cp oldfile newfile  # Copy oldfile to newfile

       cp -R dir1 dir2	   # Copy a directory tree

DESCRIPTION

       Cp  copies one file to another, or copies one or more files to a directory.  Special files are normally opened and read, unless -r is used.
       -r also copies the link structure, something -R doesn't care about.  The -s option differs from -p that it only copies  the  times  if  the
       target file already exists.  A normal copy only copies the mode of the file, with the file creation mask applied.  Set-uid bits are cleared
       if the owner cannot be set.  (The -s flag does not patronize you by clearing bits.  Alas -s and -r are nonstandard.)

       Cpdir is a convenient synonym for cp -psmr to make a precise copy of a directory tree.

SEE ALSO

       cat(1), mkdir(1), rmdir(1), ln(1), rm(1).

																	     CP(1)
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