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Full Discussion: revision of copy script to allow for single quote
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting revision of copy script to allow for single quote Post 302707387 by LMHmedchem on Friday 28th of September 2012 01:06:39 PM
Old 09-28-2012
revision of copy script to allow for single quote
I have the following script that I use to copy a list of files from one dir to another,
Code:
#!/usr/bin/bash
# $1=filename of file with the list of files to copy
# $2=column header for col in list file with filenames (filePath in most cases)
# $3=src dir
# $3=destination dir

FILE_LIST="$1"
FILE_FIELD="$2"
SOURCE_DIR="$3"
DEST_DIR="$4"

if [ $# -ne 4 ]
then
   echo "usage: $0 file_list field src_dir dest_dir" >&2
   exit 1
fi
if [ ! -f "$FILE_LIST" ]
then
    echo "Invalid filelist $FILE_LIST">&2
    exit 2
fi
# create destination directory if it doesnt' exist
if [ ! -d "$DEST_DIR" ]
then
    mkdir $DEST_DIR
fi
if [ ! -d "$SOURCE_DIR" ]
then
    echo "Invalid source directory">&2
    exit 4
fi
 
awk -vS="$SOURCE_DIR" -vFLD="$FILE_FIELD" 'NR==1{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++)if($i==FLD)w=i;next}
w {print S "/" $w}' $FILE_LIST | xargs  -r cp --target-directory="$DEST_DIR"

This reads the list of file names from a column in a text file and then copies those files from the src dir to the target dir.

I have run into a problem as some of my file names contain single quotes and I am getting an xargs error,

"xargs: unmatched single quote; by default quotes are special to xargs unless you use the -0 option"

I tried adding -0, but I got an error that the argument line was too long. I don't know xargs well enough to know exactly which arguments I need, or if I need to use a different approach to the script. The filenames will never have spaces or double quotes, but may have . , ' - _ ~ ( ) [ ] { } < >

I appreciate the assistance as there are often a lot of files and no good solution in the absence of a script.

LMHmedchem
 

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mvdir

mvdir(1M)																 mvdir(1M)

NAME

       mvdir - move a directory

SYNOPSIS

       dir newdir

DESCRIPTION

       moves one directory tree into another existing directory (within the same file system), or renames a directory without moving it.

       dir must be an existing directory.

       If newdir does not exist but the directory that would contain it does, dir is moved and/or renamed to newdir.  Otherwise, newdir must be an
       existing directory not already containing an entry with the same name as the last pathname component of dir.  In this case,  dir  is  moved
       and becomes a subdirectory of newdir.  The last pathname component of dir is used as the name for the moved directory.

       refuses	to  move  dir  if  the	path specified by newdir would be a descendent directory of the path specified by dir.	Such cases are not
       allowed because cyclic sub-trees would be created as in the case, for example, of which is prohibited.

       does not allow directory to be moved.

       Only users who have appropriate privileges can use

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

   International Code Set Support
       Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.

AUTHOR

       was developed by OSF and HP.

SEE ALSO

       cp(1), mkdir(1), mv(1).

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE

																	 mvdir(1M)
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