Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

I was thinking that this should be a synch but I could never get it to work.

I want to copy a bunch of files within a directory (3/4 levels into the directory) to a common place. All these files have the same name, so I prefer to rename them with the path.

I tried with

Code:

files=`ls -1 to\ process/*/num1/New\ folder/plot/level.pdf`

for xx in $files
do
        cp $xx /home/newname$files
done

I get this as error-

Code:

cp: target `folder/plot/level.pdf' is not a directory

How do I escape the New\ folder in this case?
Please help me out...
Thanks.

Never, ever, EVER, use a simple ls to generate a list of filenames for a for-loop. Not only is it unnecessary, it is incapable of handling any whitespace in filenames.

If you need to use ls with some options to generate the list, perhaps because you want it sorted by date, for example, then pipe the output of ls into a while-read loop.

I did not test the following, so there could be an error. In any case, it should point you in the right direction.

Code:

for f in to\ process/*/num1/New\ folder/plot/level.pdf; do
    d=${f#*/}
    d=${d%%/*}
    cp "$f" "/home/$d-${f##*/}"
done

Regards,
Alister

Hi Alister,

Got it and thanks a lot.

/Jamie

HI,

could someone explain how the %% and # and $ work here? I would like to make some changes, but not sure how to...

Hi Alister
I just noted that you are online could you please please give a small explanation on the working? or point me to where I can read about it. Thanks a lot!!

Your shell's man page should explain it in the 'parameter expansion' section.

Regards,
Alister