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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 SUNOS

break

break(1)							   User Commands							  break(1)

NAME

       break, continue - shell built-in functions to escape from or advance within a controlling while, for, foreach, or until	loop

SYNOPSIS

   sh
       break [n]

       continue [n]

   csh
       break

       continue

   ksh
       *break [n]

       *continue [n]

DESCRIPTION

   sh
       The break utility exits from the enclosing for or while loop, if any. If n is specified, break n levels.

       The continue utility resumes the next iteration of the enclosing for or while loop. If n is specified, resume at the n-th enclosing loop.

   csh
       The  break  utility  resumes  execution after the end of the nearest enclosing foreach or while loop. The remaining commands on the current
       line are executed. This allows multilevel breaks to be written as a list of break commands, all on one line.

       The continue utility continues execution of the next iteration of the nearest enclosing while or foreach loop.

   ksh
       The break utility exits from the enclosed for, while, until, or select loop, if any. If n is specified,	then  break  n	levels.  If  n	is
       greater than the number of enclosing loops, the outermost enclosing loop shall be exited.

       The  continue utility resumes the next iteration of the enclosed for, while, until, or select loop. If n is specified then resume at the n-
       th enclosed loop. If n is greater than the number of enclosing loops, the outermost enclosing loop shall be used.

       On this man page, ksh(1) commands that are preceded by one or two * (asterisks) are treated specially in the following ways:

       1.  Variable assignment lists preceding the command remain in effect when the command completes.

       2.  I/O redirections are processed after variable assignments.

       3.  Errors cause a script that contains them to abort.

       4.  Words that follow a command preceded by ** that are in the format of a variable assignment are expanded with the same rules as a  vari-
	   able  assignment.  This means that tilde substitution is performed after the = sign, and also that word splitting and file name genera-
	   tion are not performed.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       csh(1), exit(1), ksh(1), sh( 1), attributes(5)

SunOS 5.10							    17 Jul 2002 							  break(1)
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