Hello, I am still pretty new at writing shell scripts and may have bitten off more than I can chew. I am trying to write a script that figures out if a file exists (a known name) in directory a, then copy it to my selected destination, otherwise, look in directory b and check there. If it is in neither place, I'd like an output saying that it was not copied/doesn't exist. I need to be able to do this for multiple files that may be in either directory a or b.
I am currently trying to pass my user requested inputs into an array and have a for loop operate on each member of the array but I am not sure I am doing either part quite right and I'd like to know if what I'm doing will even work before I pour tons of hours into it. Currently, my script copies the first file I list (happens to be in directory a), then gives the error, "Bad escape character" and lists the file path for directory b with the already copied file from directory a. My code is not on this pc, so I'd have to manually transcribe it and I will if I must.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
---------- Post updated at 10:44 PM ---------- Previous update was at 10:04 PM ----------
Code:
read -a files
for i in $files
do
if
test -e /directory a/$files
then
for i in $files
do
cp /directory a/$files /directory
done
elif
test -e /directory b/$files
then
for i in $files
do
cp /directory b/$files /directory
done
fi
done
That $ should not be there as you are reading ( like affectation...) but forgive me if Im wrong Im just got up ( waken by my daughter who cant print pfff...) not properly awake yet
Then bad idea to give variable names in lower case as its confusing for old guys like me...
The trick with shell programming (like with programming in general) is to "divide and conquer": make several smaller (simple) problems from one big complex problem and solve these.
Applying this general advice to your task means:
Quote:
script that figures out if a file exists (a known name) in directory a, then copy it to my selected destination, otherwise, look in directory b and check there. If it is in neither place, I'd like an output saying that it was not copied/doesn't exist. I need to be able to do this for multiple files that may be in either directory a or b.
Now let us break that down: let us suppose we had a command which does exactly what you want for one file. Let us further suppose we already have a (fixed) list of files we want to test. Then the script would be easy:
Code:
#! /bin/ksh
typeset afFile[1]="file.foo" # my list of fixed files
typeset afFile[2]="file.bla"
typeset afFile[3]="file.other"
typeset -i iCnt=0 # a counter to process the array
(( iCnt = 1 ))
while [ $iCnt -le ${#afFile[@]} ] ; do
pWorkFile "${afFile[$iCnt]}"
(( iCnt += 1 ))
done
exit 0
The counter "iCnt" in the while-loop is just taking one number (1, 2, ...) after the other as long as there are corresponding array elements with such a number. When we run out of array elements the loop is left and we end.
But of course there is no such thing as "pWorkFile" which gets the name of one file and does what you want, so we have to write that now. But because it has to do only one file instead of a list, it is easier to do that:
Code:
#! /bin/ksh
pWorkFile ()
{
typeset fFile="$1" # $1 holds the parameter with which it was called
typeset fPathA="/some/where"
typeset fPathB="/else/where"
if [ -e "${fPathA}/$fFile" ] ; then
cp "${fPathA}/$fFile" "${fPathB}/$fFile"
elif [ -e "${fPathB}/$fFile" ] ; then
cp "${fPathB}/$fFile" "${fPathA}/$fFile"
else
print - "Neither ${fPathA}/$fFile nor ${fPathB}/$fFile exists."
fi
return 0
}
# -------------------------------------- start of main program
typeset afFile[1]="file.foo" # my list of fixed files
typeset afFile[2]="file.bla"
typeset afFile[3]="file.other"
typeset -i iCnt=0 # a counter to process the array
(( iCnt = 1 ))
while [ $iCnt -le ${#afFile[@]} ] ; do
pWorkFile "${afFile[$iCnt]}"
(( iCnt += 1 ))
done
exit 0
And in the same way you finally include code for a variable (instead of a fixed) list of filenames, which i leave for you as i do not want to take all the fun of programming from you.
I said shell scripts in my first post, but I meant bash scripts. I am completely unfamiliar with ksh and only kinda sorta understand how that translates.
I said shell scripts in my first post, but I meant bash scripts. I am completely unfamiliar with ksh and only kinda sorta understand how that translates.
No problem, as what i wrote above is tru for both ksh and bash alike.
Change:
Code:
#! /bin/ksh
to
Code:
#! /path/to/your/bash
which is presumably /bin/bash or /usr/bin/bash, depending on your system and change the "typeset" statements to "local". This should work.
Thank you so much for your help thus far! I do have an issue still, though. The files I will be checking for have names that vary (they are time-stamped, along with other related info) and thus they do not have static names. That is why I was trying to put them into an array and operate on them individually in my original code.
I have a section of code that gives me the lists of files in these two locations and then I prompt the user for which of the files they would like to copy. Again, this is only problematic because they could be in one of two known locations.
My question is, given that the files aren't static names, how do I pass along the user's input into this loop? Was I on the right track with read -a to put it into an array?
---------- Post updated at 07:25 PM ---------- Previous update was at 05:52 PM ----------
Still toying with this trying to get it to work. Is the red a typo?
Code:
while [ $iCnt -le ${#afFile[@]} ] ; do
pWorkFile "${afFile[$iCnt]}"
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