UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I want to list all html files present in a directory tree, the remove the newline and get one string with a space between files

Code:

find /home/chrisd/Desktop/seg/geohtml/ -name '*.html' | awk BEGIN{FS=\r} '{print}'

---------- Post updated at 06:47 PM ---------- Previous update was at 06:25 PM ----------

Problem is now solved

Code:

find /home/chrisd/Desktop/seg/geohtml/ -name '*.html' | tr -d '\n' | awk '{gsub("/home"," /home"); print}'

If you don't mind having the extra space appear at the end of the list instead of at the start of the list, you can get rid of the call to awk by using:

Code:

find /home/chrisd/Desktop/seg/geohtml/ -name '*.html' | tr '\n' ' '

If the resulting output is more than bytes long, the value returned by the command:

Code:

getconf LINE_MAX

on your system, awk won't work portably. (It may work on some systems, but report a "Line too long" or "Buffer overflow" error, or silently truncate the output on others.)

But more importantly, why do you want to do this at all?

paste is another simple alternative, one which implicitly handles the last line in a manner yielding a single, valid line.

Regards,
Alister

If we go back and look at the original problem statement: you'll note that a line is not the desired output; a string containing no newlines is what was requested; not a line.

I would still like to know what kristinu wants to do with this string. In 99 and 44/100% of cases where a list of files is needed, I would expect a list of files with one filename per line to be easier to use than a string of space separated filenames (with or without a trailing newline). If any file in the list contains a space character, a space separated string of filenames is useless. (And, yes, I know that it is also possible for a filename to contain a newline which would make a newline separated list of filenames useless.) But in common usage, spaces are much more common in filenames than newlines (thus the 99.44% rather than 100%).

That is

Code:

find /home/chrisd/Desktop/seg/geohtml/ -name '*.html' | paste -s -d" " -

(And there is no extra space at the end.)

According to the verbal description, perhaps, but the tr ... | awk ... solution posted by the OP is an over-complicated and rickety paste ....

Regards,
Alister