Concatenate (using bash) all file names in subdirectories with option

Question

I have directory work_dir, and there are some subdirectories inside. And inside subdirectories there are zip archives. I can see all zip archives in terminal:

find . -name *.zip

The output:

./folder2/sub/dir/test2.zip
./folder3/test3.zip
./folder1/sub/dir/new/test1.zip

---

Now I want to concatinate all these file names in single row with some option. For example I want single row:

my_command -f ./folder2/sub/dir/test2.zip -f ./folder3/test3.zip -f ./folder1/sub/dir/new/test1.zip -u user1 -p pswd1

In this example:
my_command is some command
-f the option
-u user1 another option with value
-p pswd1 another option with value

Can you help me please, how can I do this in Linux BASH ?

Answer 1

One way is: (updated per @M. Nejat Aydin comments)

find . -name "*.zip" -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 printf -- '-f\0%s\0' | xargs -0 -n100000 my_command -u user1 -p pswd1

Note that -n100000 parameter forces all output of the previous xargs to be executed on the same line with the assumption that number of findings will be less than 100000.

I used null terminated versions (notice: -0 flag, -print0) because file names can contain spaces.

Answer 2

This is a bash script that should do what you wanted.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

user=user1
passwd=pswd1

while IFS= read -rd '' files; do
  args+=(-f "$files")
done < <(find . -name '*.zip' -print0)

args=("${args[@]}" -u "$user" -p "$passwd")

##: Just for the human eye to see the output, 
##: change this line of code according to the comment below.   
printf 'mycommand %s\n' "${args[*]}" 

---

The output should be in one-line, like what you wanted, but do change the last line from

printf 'mycommand %s\n' "${args[*]}"

into

mycommand "${args[@]}"

If you actually want to execute mycommand with the arguments.

---

Change the value of user and passwd too.

---

• A while + read loop was used with IFS.

See How can I read a file (data stream, variable) line-by-line (and/or field-by-field)?

---

• Why the last line should be change. See Arguments

---

• Shell quoting is a basic but common mistake when dealing with spaces in file/path name.

See How can I find and safely handle file names containing

---

Also the find command/utiliy.

---

• The construct "${args[@}" is an array.

See Array1 Array2 Array3

Answer 3

You can do this by making a bash script.

1. Make a new file called whatever.sh
2. Type chmod +x ./whatever.sh so it becomes executable on the terminal
3. Add the BASH scripting as shown below..

#!/bin/bash
# Get all the zip files from your FolderName
files="`find ./FolderName -name *.zip`"

# Loop through the files and build your args
arg=""
for file in $files; do
    arg="$arg -f $file"
done

# Run your command
mycommand $arg -u user1 -p pswd1