UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,
I have a list of names (in a text file) like this:

Code:

SRR1234
SRR5678
SRR4321
SRR8876

I'd like to have a unix code to find all the files which have any of above strings in their name and move them to a specific directory. I have my files distributed in many subdirectories so it has to search them all.
Thanks

Try:

Code:

xargs -I% find /source -name "*%*" -exec mv {} /destination \; < list.txt

Code:

cat list.txt | while read pattern; do find sourcedir -name "*$pattern*" -exec mv '{}' destdir/ \;;done

Emanuele

Have you made any attempt to solve the problem yourself? If so, show us your code. If not, did you at least search the forum? This has been answered before.



There is no need to traverse the filesystem hierarchy more than once, much less once per pattern. A much more efficient approach runs find only once, piping its output into grep. Whatever survives is moved.

The OP did not address basename collisions. If they're a possibility, then clobbering needs to be addressed.

Regards,
Alister