Loop through files in a given directory

Question

I am trying to loop through every file in a user specified directory. Here's my code:

clear
echo "enter the directory path: \n"
read directory
for file in $directory; do
    echo $file
done

My input, e.g.: /home/user/Downloads

Output I get: /home/user/Downloads

If I use

clear
for file in *; do
    echo $file
done

It works, but it shows only the contenets of current directory

Do you want to loop through files recursively, or just the files in the given directory, not its children? — kojiro, May 01 '14 at 13:35
Just the files in the given directory, not the files from subdirectories — kulan, May 01 '14 at 13:36

score 25 · Accepted Answer · answered May 01 '14 at 13:35

25

If you only want the files non-recursively in the current directory, combine what you have:

read -p 'Enter the directory path: ' directory
for file in "$directory"/*; do
  echo "$file"
done

If you want to loop recursively and you have bash 4, it's not much harder:

shopt -s globstar
for file in "$directory"/**/*; do …

But if you only have bash 3, you'd be better off using find.

find "$directory"

answered May 01 '14 at 13:35

kojiro

For bash 3, you replace "shopt -s globstar" with "find "$directory""? – kulan May 01 '14 at 13:41
@kulan You can use `find` with any version of bash since it's an external command. And `find` is powerful in its own right, but if it's possible to do what you want in pure bash, you can avoid `forking`. – kojiro May 01 '14 at 13:42
No, it's just that I'm beginning to learn bash scripting, I was unclear about what you said, so I wanted to make sure. Perhaps I would need it in the future. – kulan May 01 '14 at 13:46
@kulan you should definitely learn to [use `find`](http://mywiki.wooledge.org/UsingFind). It's complex, but extremely useful. – kojiro May 01 '14 at 13:48

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 05 '19 at 03:34

3

Try

dir="${GOL_HOME}/test_dir"
file="file_*.csv"
for file in `cd ${dir};ls -1 ${file}` ;do
   echo $file
done

answered Feb 05 '19 at 03:34

Farid Haq

best solution for me for file in `cd ./dist/libs;ls -1 ${file}` ;do echo $file cd "./dist/libs/$file" pwd cd ../../.. done – evanjmg Jun 17 '22 at 15:04

score -6 · Answer 3 · answered May 01 '14 at 13:45

-6

You can write this script

 #!/bin/bash

clear
echo "enter the directory path: \n"
read directory
for file in $directory/*; do
    echo $file
done

answered May 01 '14 at 13:45

tarun singh

3 Answers3