Globbing means matching files by name patterns containing wildcards.
2
votes
2answers
102 views
What exactly did mv /tmp/folder/* /* do to my filesystem?
It's hard to search for special characters on google, which is why I'm posting this here.
I recently ran (as root) a mv /tmp/folder/* /* when I meant to run mv /tmp/folder/* ./ Big mistake!
Things ...
1
vote
3answers
91 views
Test if there are files matching a pattern in bash
I am trying to write an if statement in bash to test whether there are any files matching a certain pattern. If there is a text file in a directory it should run a given script.
My code currently
if ...
2
votes
5answers
202 views
In linux, how to delete all files EXCEPT the pattern *.txt?
I know how to delete all txt file under current directory by rm *.txt.
Does anyone know how to delete all files in current directory EXCEPT txt file?
6
votes
3answers
431 views
How to silently get an empty string from a glob pattern with no matches
Say I have a folder with three files:
foo1
foo2
bar
1. If I run
list_of_files=$(print foo*)
echo $list_of_files
I get: foo1 foo2
2. If I run
list_of_files=$(print bar*)
echo $list_of_files
...
9
votes
8answers
896 views
How do I delete everything in a directory?
I'm sorry for asking such a basic question:
How do I delete everything in a directory, including hidden files and directories?
Right now, I use the following:
rm -rf *
rm -rf .*
3
votes
4answers
182 views
How to remove files which do not end with “.c”?
I have a directory which contains all the C programs. I have also compiled them at the creation time so as to check my code. There are a lot of programs nearly 100 of them. So I want a BASH script ...
3
votes
2answers
58 views
Sort files by modification time
I've seen many questions and answers here using a construction along the lines of
list_dir=`ls -t /path/to/dir/`
for i in $list_dir; do
or
ls -t | while read i; do
Now, I know that you shouldn't ...
3
votes
4answers
92 views
rm -rf all files and all hidden files w/o . & .. error?
rm -rf /some/path/* deletes all non-hidden files in that dir (and subdirs).
rm -rf /some/path/.* deletes all hidden files in that dir (but not subdirs) and also gives the following error/warning:
...
2
votes
3answers
77 views
ffmpeg -pattern_type glob — not loading files in correct order
I have a dilemma..
I've had a script for a while now that downloads pictures from a webcam every few minutes.
The naming convention just does new_image((len(files(dir))+1) + '.jpg') and that's all ...
4
votes
2answers
52 views
Passing glob expressions to functions/scripts
The following script is supposed to concatenate multiple csv files in a path specified in the first argument into a single csv file specified in the second argument
#!/bin/zsh
set -x
set -v
...
3
votes
2answers
281 views
How to enable tab completion of wildcards in bash?
How can I enable tab completion in bash for a statement such as vim db/migrate/*crea? Essentially I am looking for tab completion to match the regular expression and present the options.
How would ...
3
votes
2answers
75 views
How do I let bash autocomplete wildcards?
If I have directory containing the files
foo.bar.a.cat
foo.bar.a.hat
and I type ls f+TAB the bash shell autocompletes to ls foo.bar.a.. If I type ls *bar*+ TAB I would like it to autocomplete to ...
28
votes
5answers
2k views
The result of ls * , ls ** and ls ***
I know using the command ls will list all the directories. But what does the ls * command do ? I used it and it just lists the directories. Is the star in front of ls means how deep it can list the ...
5
votes
1answer
676 views
The best way to expand glob pattern?
I need to expand a glob pattern (like ../smth*/*, or /etc/cron*/) into a list of files, programmatically. What would be the best way to do it?
22
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, ...
13
votes
8answers
11k views
Converting multiple image files from JPEG to PDF format
I want to convert some files from jpeg to pdf. I am using following command.
$ convert image1.jpg image1.pdf
But I have 100 images. How should I convert all of them to corresponding pdfs?
I ...
2
votes
3answers
103 views
Very strange behavior with grep and IFS
I'm having trouble using grep, the returned results are "n-empty", I mean without the 'n' character...
This is the script sample :
OLDIFS=$IFS
IFS="\\n"
i=$(grep -ril $1 *)
echo $i
IFS=$OLDIFS
...
3
votes
4answers
74 views
Expansion with numbers in human readable format
So, I want to play some MP3s in a console player that takes file names as inputs. I have the following files, as given by ls -1 * where * get expanded by my shell (zsh):
1 - Main title.mp3
10 - End ...
4
votes
3answers
87 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
77 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:
...
2
votes
6answers
96 views
How to make tar globbing work with the 'change directory' option
I have the followin directory structure:
base/
files/
archives/
scripts/
I want a script to run from scripts/, compress files that match results.*.log in files/ into a gzipped tar archive ...
1
vote
2answers
88 views
Excluding a directory name in a zsh recursive glob
I'm running zsh on Linux under setopt extended_glob ksh_glob glob_dots. I'm looking for something easy to type on the command line, with no portability requirements. I'm looking at a source code tree, ...
8
votes
5answers
243 views
Can I select only one result from a bash glob?
I'm trying to write a script for work to automate some reporting on an output. The Log files are (currently, it's being 'standardise' in the future) stored in this sort of path structure:
...
0
votes
3answers
55 views
How to find files ending with ~ and pyc? [duplicate]
I want to find all files (in current and all subdirectory) which end in'~' or 'pyc'. To do so I have tried the following find pattern:
find . -name '*{~,pyc}'
find . -name '{*~,*.pyc}'
but neither ...
3
votes
1answer
143 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 ...
1
vote
3answers
168 views
What does a question mark in a filename matching pattern mean?
What does the question mark in this command mean?
find . –type d –name "?d*" –print
I tried to to run it without it but didn't notice any change.
2
votes
3answers
84 views
Filter a list of strings using math
I have a directory with files listed like so:
abc201303130110.txt
abc201303140511.txt
abc201303150112.txt
As you can see, the filename contains a datetime stamp. I want to return all files with the ...
0
votes
1answer
72 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 ...
2
votes
2answers
114 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 ...
5
votes
3answers
257 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 ...
1
vote
1answer
74 views
starting vim with command substitution
I am working on a project on two different machines - one running Mac OSX 10.8.3, and one running Red Hat Enterprise Linux. On my Mac, I can do this:
vim $(ls -R */*.@(h|cpp) */*/*.@(h|cpp))
and ...
4
votes
4answers
252 views
Avoiding errors due to unexpanded asterisk
In bash I often use for-loops such as the following
for file in *.type; do
sommecommand "$file";
done;
to perform an operation for all files matching *.type. If no file with this ending is ...
1
vote
1answer
87 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 ...
6
votes
1answer
135 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 ...
2
votes
2answers
62 views
Select greatest numbered filename
Simple requirement but can't find anything online which can achieve it.
I have a list of dated files as below...
filename_20120101.dat
filename_20120102.dat
filename_20120103.dat
I ...
8
votes
2answers
5k views
How to use wildcards (*) when copying with scp?
Why can't I copy with scp when I'm using "*" characters in the path?
scp SERVERNAME:/DIR/* .
What configs do SCP need to allow "*" in the path?
UPDATE: the problem is not on server side, pscp is ...
4
votes
8answers
210 views
Run a command on all subfolders
If you have a series of subfolders (like from a to z) and want to run a command on each one of them (like rm *.pdf or ls *.pdf), how do you do that? The "manual" approach would be cd a, rm *.pdf, or ...
3
votes
1answer
226 views
for loop in bash function
I recently wrote the following bash function:
makeaudiobook () {
count=1
almbumartist=$2
for f in $1; do
preprocess $f > $f-preprocessed
text2wave $f-preprocessed -o $f.wav
...
1
vote
2answers
76 views
How to get “current glob” in zsh
I want to do something like:
$ convert [a,b,c,d,e].png -resize 50% <current_match>_half.png
How can I do this? Is there some variable that stores the current match? I couldn't find anything in ...
6
votes
2answers
149 views
Remove all Vim undo files in all but one directory
I just realized that I have tons of Vim undo (.un~) files sprinkled around my file system. I'd like to delete all of these files except in one directory—~/.tmp. My first problem is that I can't seem ...
1
vote
3answers
138 views
Reading a directory in shell script
I want to read a numbered directory which is under a path, into a variable in shell script.
The paths are something like this:
.../releases/R1/...
.../releases/R2/...
.../releases/R3/...
Each time ...
2
votes
2answers
134 views
Bash Wildcard Partial Match Directory
I have this bash script which is trying to find a directory that partially changes on peoples systems.
cd "$HOMEDIR/AppData/Local/GitHub/PortableGit"*"/bin"
Yet this does not seem to work - it ...
1
vote
1answer
137 views
How can I zip the contents of current directory minus all hidden files?
How can I zip up the contents (excluding hidden files and folders) of the folder I am currently in?
zip -r extension.xpi . -x "*/.*"
This is what I have so far, but I am still getting hidden files.
...
1
vote
1answer
102 views
Copy files excluding x,y,z causing error in shell script
I'm not well versed in shell scripting but I imagine this to be a painfully easy fix but its eluding me.
I need to copy the contents of a directory excluding a number of files. I have a command that ...
5
votes
1answer
70 views
Bash globbing: how to express “something-*.txt except *-foobar.txt” as glob?
On the command line, can I express easily in terms of shell globs that I would like to catch all files something-*.txt, except for something-*-foobar.txt? If I can, how?
NB: I know how to achieve the ...
4
votes
3answers
154 views
Create symbolic links to files using wildcards
I want to create symlinks to multiple files:
ln -s dev-*.php 's/dev-(.*\.php)/$1/'
Results hoped for:
site.php links to dev-site.php
file.php links to dev-file.php
What's the most ...
1
vote
3answers
156 views
Shell script Variable Structure
How can I create a variable with a file name format like :
FileName pattern: SnapshotIR__somenumber.csv
I tried something like :
TODAY=$(date +"%m%d%Y")
SNAPSHOT = $(SnapshotIR$TODAY*.csv)
I ...
1
vote
1answer
99 views
Why does printf ignore the IFS when printing out the result of my script?
This is a follow up to a question posted on SO.
I've written a script called except which should print all filenames / directories except the ones given like so.
$ ls
a b c d
$ rm $(except b d)
$ ls
...
4
votes
2answers
209 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
175 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 ...
