Shell Programming and Scripting

Code:

ls -lrt | awk '$7==12{print $9}' | xargs -i mv {} $dir

i executed this command but $dir does not exists.......
and the files hv been moved but i dont know where .....
plz help(ASAP)

thanks in advance.

Do you know the exact name of one of the files?

Code:

find / -name exactnameoffile -exec ls -l {} \;

find / ....
will search in each directory????

What was the value of $dir ?

I think I know what has happened. Not good I'm afraid.
If the value of $dir was not the name of a directory, the "mv" command will assume that it is a file ... and create it.

Unfortunately every file in your current directory with a day-of-month field of "12" has been moved to the same file. That file has the name of the directory that didn't exist. The only file which is salvageable is the last file which was moved (as long as you know what the name of the file was).

thanks for ur reply
i got it
only the last file is moved to a $dir(a file being created)......

i hv another doubt
suppose my $dir is like /abc/def/
should i provide "/abc/def/" or "/abc/def/." in my command

(Prefix: Sorry, I do not understand you last post #5 at all. Please write again in better English. This is not an answer to your last post, it is an answer about how to find the file which was created).


In this context I've assumed that directory "/abc" exists or the "mv" command would have failed.

This should provide the answer.

Code:

ls -la $dir

Or:

Code:

ls -la /abc/def/

Or:

Code:

ls -la /abc/def

All of which should give the same result.



ANALYSIS of Post #5
1) ALL your files dated day "12" (in any month and in any year) got moved to the single named file when $dir was not a directory.
Only the last file to be moved was not overwritten. It was a disaster. We hope you were just testing.
2) When $dir is a directory, the best format is "/abc/def/" . Get into the habit of putting double quotes round strings. One day it will save you.

Code:

dir="/abc/def/"
ls -lrt | awk '$7==12{print $9}' | xargs -i mv {} "${dir}"

3) I have real trouble reading text speak ! Words like "ur" and "hv".

suppose like i have 26 files named a.txt,b.txt,c.txt,....y.txt,z.txt
i have to move them to a directory /dir1/dir2/dir3
but by mistake dir3 does not exists
i executed

Code:

ls -lrt | awk '$7==12{print $9}' | xargs -i mv {} /dir1/dir2/dir3

then a file named dir3 is created in directory /dir1/dir2/
which is nothing but z.txt
---------------------
and my doubt was what is the difference in below two

Code:

ls -lrt | awk '$7==12{print $9}' | xargs -i mv {} /dir1/dir2/dir3/.
ls -lrt | awk '$7==12{print $9}' | xargs -i mv {} /dir1/dir2/dir3