Move files from one directory to another in chunks


 
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# 1  
Old 08-22-2017
Move files from one directory to another in chunks

All,

I have an application that is not working properly and the company is 'in the process' of fixing it. In the meantime, I want to write a bash script work-around. However, what I thought was going to be simple is seemingly not.

Need:

- Move files from one directory to another in chunks.

If I move all the files at once the system resources are heavily consumed and the application suffers. The source directory ($dir1) will contain any number of files (100's or 1000's) at any given time. So, I'd like to do something like:

Code:
if [ "$(ls -A $dir1) ]; then

	find $dir1 -maxdepth 1 -type f > output.txt

	<loop through output.txt moving x amount of files at a time until directory empty>

	mv `head -100 output.txt` $dir2

else

	echo "no files to move.."

fi

I know I can accomplish what I need with a brute force creation of many files to read from but there must be a more sophisticated way to do it.

Is there way to drop the list of files into an array and do something like:

Code:
mv $files[1-100] $dir2
mv $files[101-200] $dir2

I need to find a usable number of files to move at a time (could be 100, 5000, 10000) while not knowing how many files could be in $dir1 at any given time.

Any guidance is greatly appreciated.

TIA,

Herb

Last edited by rbatte1; 08-22-2017 at 06:26 AM.. Reason: Added CODE tags
# 2  
Old 08-22-2017
Hi, why dont you try in for loop. with some sleep time enabled. change the SOURCE_DIR and DESTINATION_DIR values according to your source and destination folder
Code:
#!/bin/bash
SOURCE_DIR="/tmp/source"
DESTINATION_DIR="/tmp/destination"

cd ${SOURCE_DIR}
for FileName in *
do
	echo "Moving the File : ${FileName}"
	mv ${FileName} ${DESTINATION_DIR}
	sleep 1
done

This User Gave Thanks to itkamaraj For This Post:
# 3  
Old 08-22-2017
You could be simpler with xargs and a call to another mini-script. A starter might be something like:-
Code:
$ cat my_mover.sh
#!/bin/bash
#my_mover.sh script actually does the work

target_dir=$1                 # Grab the target directory
shift                         # Chop off the target directory to just leave all the files listed

mv $@ $target_dir             # Take all arguments and move them to the target directory
sleep 1

You can then run something like this:-
Code:
find $dir1 -maxdepth 1 -type f | xargs -n 100 $dir2 my_mover.sh

This will move 100 files at a time (specified by the xargs parameter after -n)




I hope that this helps,
Robin
This User Gave Thanks to rbatte1 For This Post:
# 4  
Old 08-22-2017
Thank you @itkamaraj and @rbatte1 for your replies.

I will test with your suggestions and see what makes the most sense.

Thanks again,

HB
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