Tagged Questions
21
votes
7answers
2k views
why does ls -d also list files, and where is it documented?
when specifying ls --directory a* it should list only directories starting with a*
BUT it lists files AND directories starting with a
Questions:
where might I find some documentation on this, ...
4
votes
3answers
77 views
Why should 'Character Classes' be preferred over 'Character Ranges' In Shell (Bash)?
The Linux Command Line (Book - page count 47) says:
... you have to be very careful with them [character ranges] because they will not produce the expected results unless properly configured. For ...
0
votes
2answers
71 views
Supress expansion of * in echo
I am working on a script which dynamically executes some queries on daily basis. These queries are coming from a table in the database.
Here is the sample output of the query table:
...
3
votes
1answer
118 views
Shell wildcards and dot files
I am a beginner terminal user trying to understand wildcards. I think I pretty much have a good grasp on it, but I have a couple of questions:
Why do the following two codes work as expected:
ls -d ...
2
votes
2answers
89 views
Working of rm/ls with [0-9]
I am learning the shell commands and came across the short tags eg.[0-9],[[:digit:]] etc.. As a proof of concept i tried deleting all the files with the rm command(i know its not a good practise but i ...
0
votes
1answer
64 views
Working of the [0-9] [duplicate]
I am learning the shell commands and came across the short tags eg.[0-9],[[:digit:]] etc.. As a proof of concept i tried deleting all the files with the rm command(i know its not a good practise but i ...
5
votes
3answers
206 views
How do I remove all sub-directories from within a directory?
This question is kind of a phase II to the first question I posted at here
I have a directory that contains a bunch of sub-directories, .zip files, and other random files not contained within a ...
6
votes
1answer
122 views
Wildcards inside quotes
This will be an easy one, but in my memories, when shell scripting, using double quotes would allow expanding globbing and variables.
But in the following code:
#!/bin/sh
echo *.sh
echo "*.sh"
echo ...
1
vote
1answer
75 views
How to prevent double escaping?
I'm trying to put a bunch of images together into a pdf. I ran gm convert *.jpg out.pdf and it worked, but the images were not in the right order.
I found that ls -v orders them correctly so then I ...
1
vote
3answers
136 views
Shell script Variable Structure
How can I create a variable with a file name format like :
FileName pattern: SnapshotIR__somenumber.csv
I tried something like :
TODAY=$(date +"%m%d%Y")
SNAPSHOT = $(SnapshotIR$TODAY*.csv)
I ...
4
votes
3answers
135 views
Create symbolic links to files using wildcards
I want to create symlinks to multiple files:
ln -s dev-*.php 's/dev-(.*\.php)/$1/'
Results hoped for:
site.php links to dev-site.php
file.php links to dev-file.php
What's the most ...
3
votes
2answers
185 views
Get the complement of the result of an ls command
Let's say I have a directory with multiple files, all of which are either binary files (files with no declared extensions) and source files (.c extension). I do this:
$ ls
and get:
README.md ...
3
votes
5answers
165 views
Regex match in CLI
Is there something like a logical for the cli? I want to achieve this
mv -t newfolder *.(png|jpg)
so that alls jpg and png files are moved into newfolder. I know it could be done with
mv -t ...
3
votes
1answer
60 views
Passing all files of specific filetype in current and subdirectories
I have constructed an elaborate 500+ character command with many arguments and switches to autosign multiple PDF documents.
I'm using JSignPDF and I'd like to use it's batch mode including the ...
2
votes
4answers
83 views
Copy Sequential Files
I have 12 files named dmp_000, dmp_001, etc, all the way to dmp_011. I would like to copy all of them to rdmp_000, rdmp_001, and so on, sequentially so the numbered files coincide. There must be an ...
7
votes
1answer
134 views
What is the significance of the dot in bash commands and how is it different from an asterisk?
I'm trying to understand the significance of the dot in bash and how it differs from an asterisk. Can someone please elaborate? For example, what's the difference between cp -ar /foo/. /foo2/ and cp ...
0
votes
4answers
183 views
Bash Globbing Variable Substitution? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Batch renaming files
I want to rename files using their existing name as a base for the new one.
So if I can ls these files with
ls blue*+(.png)
I'd want to rename ...
17
votes
1answer
648 views
Why doesn't 'find' show this file?
Using find with grep, one can locate files that match a pattern:
# find | grep error
./solr-modifiedSolr4/SolrPhpClient/phpdocs/errors.html
./error_log
./includes/classes/error_log
However, using ...
2
votes
1answer
162 views
unzip two different kind of file extensions
Note here, .zip and .jar is just an example, my file extensions are different. Suppose I have a directory which can contain number of zip files
a.zip b.zip c.zip
AND/OR
z.jar x.jar y.jar
along ...
3
votes
3answers
341 views
Using OR patterns in shell wildcards
Contents of my dir are
$ ls -lrt
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 admin 19 Oct 8 12:31 night.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 admin 19 Oct 8 12:31 noon.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 admin 38 Oct 8 12:31 day.txt
I ...
1
vote
5answers
913 views
ls: Do not show directories that match same pattern in wildcard searches, only files
Supposing I have something like the following, a typical business PC situation:
drwxr-xr-x 1 whatever whoever 3 Oct 3 16:40 invoices2009
drwxr-xr-x 1 whatever whoever 4 Oct 3 16:40 ...
12
votes
5answers
3k views
How to match case insensitive patterns with ls?
I would like to list all files matching a certain pattern while ignoring the case.
For example, I run the following commands:
ls *abc*
I need to see all the file that have "abc" as a part of the ...
1
vote
3answers
2k views
List only regular files (but not directories) in current directory
I can use ls -ld */ to list all the directory entries in the current directory. Is there a similarly easy way to just list all the regular files in the current directory? I know I can use find
find . ...
3
votes
2answers
354 views
How can I search a wild card name in all subfolders?
How can I search a wild card name in all subfolders? What would be the equivalent of DOS command: dir *pattern* /s in *nix?
1
vote
1answer
178 views
Extended file globbing not working with cat inside bash script
When, in my terminal, I type
cat ~/my/+(a|b)/doc
It reads ok from both ~/my/a/doc and ~/my/b/doc, but when I put that command in a bash script:
#!/bin/bash
cat ~/my/'+(a|b)'/doc
I get the error:
...
3
votes
3answers
251 views
Get a list of 3 letter commands on Mac OS X
How can I either create or find a list of 3-letter unix commands on Mac OS X?
I'd like to create a new program/command for a project. I'd like to make it a 3-letter name, but I don't want to conflict ...
2
votes
1answer
199 views
remote execution via ssh doesn't follow links?
ssh server ls /var/lib/edumate/backup/weekly/*DBB* returns one file
/var/lib/edumate/backup/weekly/DBB.0.db2inst1.NODE0000.CATN0000.20120610020013.001
but ssh server ls /data/backup/weekly/*DBB* ...
14
votes
4answers
3k views
How to copy some, but not all files?
So, you can use the * as a wild card for all files when using cp within context of a directory. Is there a way to copy all files except x file?
5
votes
5answers
336 views
What is the difference between $* and $@?
Consider the following code:
foo () {
echo $*
}
bar () {
echo $@
}
foo 1 2 3 4
bar 1 2 3 4
It outputs:
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4
I am using Ksh88, but I am interested in other common ...
3
votes
2answers
155 views
Finding program name by wildcard pattern
I am trying to write a script that will attempt to find if a certain program is installed. Lets say that the program is called, myprog. The problem is that the program can be named in different ...
2
votes
3answers
264 views
loop to paste specific files in different directories
I some directories that contain a similarly named file eg (*Sample_name*.base.coverage.txt). And I would like to paste all of the *base.coverage.txt files together. I have something written, but its ...
4
votes
2answers
167 views
Why 2 linux machine behave differently with command of the same syntax?
I am using 2 machine , which is both Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 3 (Taroon Update 2)
( I check it in /etc/*-release ).
I checked they are using the same default shell by ps -p $$, which is ...
4
votes
1answer
128 views
What is the tool that allows me to specify arbitrary directories using **
I once saw a colleague uses a tool which allows to use ** to represent any directories. For example: if a file called myfile.java sits deep inside:
src/main/com/mycompany/product/store/myfile.java
...
2
votes
2answers
223 views
How do I output a count of all files with “tty” in the filename in the Linux directory that holds files on system devices
I am having trouble knowing how to output a count of all files with “tty” in the filename in the Linux directory that holds files on system devices.
1
vote
3answers
467 views
How can we rename a file with semi-colon as part of the filename?
I tried to rename all file with extension "XLS;1" to "XLS" but it just didn't work.
I tried the following in cygwin in windows xp and they don't work:
mv *.XLS;1 *.XLS
mv *.XLS\;1 *.XLS
mv ...
2
votes
3answers
258 views
Where did scp put these files?
I ran an scp command to download some files from an SSH server. Instead of using the . to put it in the current folder, I accidentally typed *. It looks like scp copied the files and put them ...
4
votes
3answers
227 views
How to pipe to multiple places with vertical bar?
I have a folder full of files with a .dot extension like this:
a.dot
b.dot
c.dot
I want to go through all the files in this folder and run a command on them such as this:
dot -Tpdf a.dot -o a.pdf
...
2
votes
3answers
91 views
Selecting latest files and grouping by name
I have a directory containing files of the following name structure.
<device>.<yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss>
I am working on a script that will retain the the last X copies of these ...
7
votes
6answers
4k views
What's the best way to count the number of files in a directory?
If parsing the output of ls is dangerous because it can break on some funky characters (spaces, \n, ... ), what's the best way to know the number of files in a directory?
I usualy rely on find to ...
6
votes
3answers
3k views
How do I reverse a for loop?
How do I properly do a for loop in reverse order?
for f in /var/logs/foo*.log; do
bar "$f"
done
I need a solution that doesn't break for funky characters in the file names.
2
votes
4answers
189 views
Access the last file (alphabetically) in a directory
I'm trying to open a file with vim from the command line, the file is in a directory filled with automatically generated files that are prepended with a time stamp. Since I don't know the time stamps ...
4
votes
2answers
485 views
mv on a glob pattern does not work without sudo
I am using MySQL database on Ubuntu machine.
My MySQL data directory is /var/lib/mysql/ , since I have a database named "db_test" , so, I have a directory named db_test/ under /var/lib/mysql/ . And ...
4
votes
3answers
309 views
Delete matching file from every subfolder of current dir
I used this one to copy file in every dir:
find -type d -maxdepth 1 -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 cp .htaccess
Now i need to do reverse one and delete file with matching name from every sub directory of ...
10
votes
1answer
376 views
How do ${0##*/} and ${0%/*} work?
I'm quite confused about the following regular expressions I found in a shell script:
${0##*/}
${0%/*}
How do they work?
3
votes
2answers
230 views
Splitting a large directory tree by file type
I have a large data directory (20-30Gb) on my Ubuntu 10.10 desktop machine that consists of many raw data files, processed data files, and assorted scripts, tables, figures etc. generated from the ...
4
votes
4answers
762 views
file $(ls /usr/bin/* | grep zip) command gives me errors. What's wrong?
I'm a total noob when it comes to unix/linux commands and I decided to read a book.
I've reached a chapter where they try to explain how to pass the output of commands as expansions to the shell.
...
3
votes
7answers
238 views
“which” with a little “grep”-like solution?
# which mkdir
/bin/mkdir
# which mkdi
#
How can I get the path of the e.g.: "mkdir"'s binary without knowing the name of the binary file? (command). So that which "mkdi" would output the ...
2
votes
1answer
498 views
shopt -s nocaseglob is not working on Ubuntu
Case insensitive file name globbing is not working in bash on Ubuntu 11.04 64bit. The shell options specified in .bashrc are as follows:
shopt -s nocaseglob
shopt -s nocasematch
shopt also shows ...
3
votes
2answers
139 views
returning strings corresponding to shell glob matching
Suppose I have a subdirectory called sub. Then I want to operate on all files in that directory with the extension "txt". I want something like
for f in sub/*.txt
do
enscript -b "" -o {$f ...
5
votes
3answers
263 views
“mkdir foo; svn mv * foo”
I often want to do some variant of this idiom:
$ mkdir 2010
$ svn mv * 2010
Of course, I get an error because the glob matches 2010 as well:
svn: Cannot copy path '2010' into its own child ...
