Move all files one directory level up Post: 302967603

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Top Forums UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers Move all files one directory level up Post 302967603 by Don Cragun on Thursday 25th of February 2016 01:31:56 PM

02-25-2016

Registered User

Start by reading the man pages for your shell (bash) and for the find utility:

Code:

man find
man bash

Unfortunately both of those are long man pages with lots of words with very detailed meaning that may be foreign to you as a beginner. On the bash man page pay special attention to the sections titled DEFINITIONS, SHELL GRAMMAR (where you'll learn about pipelines, &&, ||, and a bunch of other shell magic), QUOTING, and EXPANSIONS (especially the subsection titled Pathname Expansion).

Fortunately, both of those pages usually have examples that you can play with to get an idea of how things work. Play with those examples. Try to expand what you learn from those examples to do other things you want to do. And consider the two examples below...

First, if you want to process directories in the current directory, try:

Code:

for DIRECTORYTOWORKWITH in */
do	printf 'Now processing directory "%s"\n' "$DIRECTORYTOWORKWITH"
	# Do what ever you want to do to this directory.
done

And second, if you want to process all directories in and under the current directory starting with the directories deepest in the current file hierarchy, try:

Code:

find . -depth -type d | while read -r DIRECTORYTOWORKWITH
do	printf 'Now processing directory "%s"\n' "$DIRECTORYTOWORKWITH"
	# Do what ever you want to do to this directory.
done

And then, if you get lost or can't understand what the man pages are saying, come back here and ask questions.

Don Cragun

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LEARN ABOUT BSD

mv

MV(1)							      General Commands Manual							     MV(1)

NAME

       mv - move or rename files

SYNOPSIS

       mv [ -i ] [ -f ] [ - ] file1 file2

       mv [ -i ] [ -f ] [ - ] file ... directory

DESCRIPTION

       Mv moves (changes the name of) file1 to file2.

       If file2 already exists, it is removed before file1 is moved.  If file2 has a mode which forbids writing, mv prints the mode (see chmod(2))
       and reads the standard input to obtain a line; if the line begins with y, the move takes place; if not, mv exits.

       In the second form, one or more files (plain files or directories) are moved to the directory with their original file-names.

       Mv refuses to move a file onto itself.

       Options:

       -i     stands for interactive mode. Whenever a move is to supercede an existing file, the user is prompted by the name of the file followed
	      by  a  question mark. If he answers with a line starting with 'y', the move continues. Any other reply prevents the move from occur-
	      ring.

       -f     stands for force. This option overrides any mode restrictions or the -i switch.

       -      means interpret all the following arguments to mv as file names.	This allows file names starting with minus.

SEE ALSO

       cp(1), ln(1)

BUGS

       If file1 and file2 lie on different file systems, mv must copy the file and delete the original.  In this case the owner name becomes  that
       of the copying process and any linking relationship with other files is lost.

4th Berkeley Distribution					  April 29, 1985							     MV(1)

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LEARN ABOUT BSD

mv