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I'm writing a script to create a directory named with today's date (yyyy_mm_dd), and then move all files ending in today's date to that directory. Is there a better way to move the files to the directory, as what I've done selects the directory as well.

now=$(date '+%Y_%m_%d')
mkdir $now
mv *$now $now/
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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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mv *?"$now" "$now/."

will ensure that your just-created directory is not selected for move, by requiring there to be at least one character (?) in front of the timestamp.

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The find command can filter on file types as well as file names.
So I think this will do what you want:

now=$(date '+%Y_%m_%d')
find . -name "*$now" -type f -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t $now/

though you may need to think about whether there are any oddities in your filenames (such as other directories containing the date string) before running this on a large batch.

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  • What if there's a directory called foo$now? Why do you assume that shouldn't be moved?
    – terdon ♦
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 14:08
  • @ terdon Because the question asks how to move files and not the directory in question. On a natural reading, that means the intention is to exclude all directories, though I can see how you might read it differently.
    – SauceCode
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 14:13

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