Bash loop only working for first iteration

Question

I am trying to upload a bunch of files to an ftp server via lfpt. For this I loop over the files and call the upload script with the file as argument. This works only for the first file.

Here's the code:

files=$(find "$dir" -maxdepth 1 -name "0025-*.PDF" -newer timestamp)
for file in "$files"
do 
bash upload.sh "$file" ""
stat "$file" >> watchdog.log
done

And here the upload script:

#!/bin/bash
echo 'upload of file' "$1" 'will start now'
lftp -e "set ftp:passive-mode true; set ftp:ssl-allow true; set ftp:ssl-force true; set ftp:ssl-protect-data true; set ftp:ssl-protect-list true; set net:timeout 10;
open -u XXX,XXX XXX;
cd '$2';
sleep 2;
put '$1';
bye"
echo "$1" written to folder "$2"

The file paths contain spaces and after the first iteration I get the error of an unkown command showing the path until the space (e.g., Unkown command ´example/test'. ; original path: example/test 2/file1.pdf). What do I get wrong?

try escaping the white space in the path with this: example/test\ 2/file1.pdf — Tehc, Jan 16 '17 at 09:16
@Byakko_Haku: try escaping the white space in the path: this would only help if this can be automated because I get the paths from the find command — Ruediger Ziege, Jan 16 '17 at 09:41
@FredrikPihl: Unfortunately this does not provide any further insights. But thanks for the idea. — Ruediger Ziege, Jan 16 '17 at 09:45
Related: [How to loop through file names returned by find?](http://stackoverflow.com/q/9612090/1983854) — fedorqui, Jan 16 '17 at 09:53
@fedorqui: Thanks! That helped a lot. Found a solution based upon the answer to the related question! — Ruediger Ziege, Jan 16 '17 at 10:30

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:24

1

I fixed the issues by using

find "$dir" -maxdepth 1 -name "0025-*.PDF" -newer timestamp -exec bash -c 'upload.sh "$0" ""' {} \;

instead of the loop.

(Based upon the answer to How to loop through file names returned by find? - many thanks to fedorqui for pointing to this post in his/her comment)

edited May 23 '17 at 12:24

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answered Jan 16 '17 at 10:29

Ruediger Ziege

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Bash loop only working for first iteration

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