Program that removes all files accept txt files in folder

Question

Takes 2 arguments , source & destination and removes all files except txt. .Im just learning bash so not used/aware of the different functions etc...

mkdir $2
cp -R $1/* $2

for file in $1/*;do #all files in testInput
   if [ -d "$file" ] #if its a file then look at the contents of it
   then
      for inDir in $file/*; do
         if [ -d "$inDir" ]
         then
            for line in $inDir ; do
               if [ line != *.txt ]
               then
                  rm line

               fi
            done
          fi
       done

    else
       for files in file; do
          if [ files != *.txt ]
          then
             rm files
          fi
       done

    fi     
done

source is a folder which contains the 3 folders and some of these subfolder contain a subfolder and files

OK, and what is the question? – Tomas Pastircak Apr 13 '14 at 11:16 — Tomas Pastircak, Apr 13 '14 at 11:16
You are missing several `$`s before variable names. – choroba Apr 13 '14 at 11:18 — choroba, Apr 13 '14 at 11:18
Everybody seems to have their assignments due on Monday. – devnull Apr 13 '14 at 11:19 — devnull, Apr 13 '14 at 11:19
Can't you just use `find` for this? – lurker Apr 13 '14 at 11:19 — lurker, Apr 13 '14 at 11:19

mxm · Answer 1 · 2014-04-18T11:19:35.587

1

Takes all files in directory $1 except *.txt files and moves them to directory $2.

find "$1" -type f ! -name "*.txt" -exec mv -v "{}" "$2" \;

As always, be careful with this...

edit added quotes around variables

edit2 quoted file name placeholder, added debug output to mv

edited Apr 18 '14 at 11:19

answered Apr 13 '14 at 11:35

mxm

605
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Maybe add some quotes around the variables to be on the safe side. – Biffen Apr 13 '14 at 12:23
1

The `{}` should also be quoted. And for some feedback, either add `-print` to `find` or `-v` to `mv`. – Biffen Apr 14 '14 at 09:31

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

1

You should use find to do that kind of task. Here is an example :

find "$dir" -type f ! -name "*.txt" -exec rm {} \;

Otherwise :

if [ line != *.txt ]
# ...
if [ files != *.txt ]

You're missing the $ before the variable name and the test is incorrect. You could try something like this instead :

[[ $line =~ \.txt$ ]] || rm line

Moreover :

for files in file; do

You're missing the character $ before the variable name and you should use something like this instead :

for files in "$file"/*; do

Finally, you don't protect your variables properly. Read this : bash : Illegal number

edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

Community

1
1

answered Apr 13 '14 at 11:37

Idriss Neumann

3,760
2
23
32

1

+1 for `=~`. Totally unused thoses days while it should. Many regex problems can be solved this way without the use of `grep` etc – naab Apr 13 '14 at 11:39
The `=~` operator is only available in bash >= 3. But bash >= 3 is available on all Linux versions and Mac OS X. So I also like to use this operator instead of an external program like `grep` ;) – Idriss Neumann Apr 13 '14 at 11:45
So how will i implement my function with find? – stringRay2014 Apr 16 '14 at 14:09

Program that removes all files accept txt files in folder

2 Answers2