Ubuntu – How to copy file from a list to a new folder

bashcommand linecopy

I have a file file1.txt located in a trial folder containing the location of image files. I want to read the list, and copy the image files to a new folder, test_folder.

The entries in file1.txt look like:

./trial/data/image1.jpg
./trial/data/image2.jpg

etc.

I tried to use a similar question to solve the problem: Copy/move a list of files to a new directory

Attempt

while read file; do cp "$file" /trial/test_folder; done < /trial/file1.txt

I get the error "bash: /trial/file1.txt: No such file or directory". Any help would be great!

Best Answer

The error you are getting is because you are reading /trial/file1.txt and not ./trial/file1.txt. That means the shell is trying to find a directory called trial which is under the root directory (/). If you want a path that is relative to your current directory, you can just use:

while read file; do cp "$file" trial/test_folder; done < trial/file1.txt

Or,

while read file; do cp "$file" ./trial/test_folder; done < ./trial/file1.txt

Or, you can use the full path:

while read file; do cp "$file" /home/shane/trial/test_folder; done < /home/shane/trial/file1.txt

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Find, Duplicate, Rename and Copy to this folder

Here is example script that users find, which output is piped to a while loop:

find "/mnt/TV Shows/" -type f -name "fanart.jpg" | while IFS= read -r item; do
    NAME="${item##*/}"
    echo cp "$item" "/mnt/Wallpapers/Slideshow/${NAME%.*}-$((i++)).${NAME##*.}"
done

Remove echo the do the action.

The name of the destination file will consist of:

${name of source file}-$((sequential number))-${extension of source file}

The numbering will start from 0, because the variable $i has not been pre-initialized. You can put i=1; before find to start numbering from 1.

Here is more complicated bash script that uses the globstart option ** to make recursive search for a file within a folder. If there is a coincidence the file will be be copied to a destination folder. You can choice between different patterns of the destination file name by changing the inner (if-fi) part of the script.

#!/bin/bash

INPUT_PATH="/mnt/TV Shows"
INPUT_FILE_NAME="fanart.jpg"
OUTPUT_PATH="/mnt/Wallpapers/Slideshow"

shopt -s globstar

for item in "${INPUT_PATH}"/**; do
    # If the item is a file and its name is equal to the INPUT_FILE_NAME
    if [[ -f "$item" && "${item##*/}" == "$INPUT_FILE_NAME" ]]; then
        # Compose OUTPUT_FILE name based on the parent directory name
        INPUT_FILE_FULL_PATH="${item%/*}"
        INPUT_FILE_PARENT_DIR="${INPUT_FILE_FULL_PATH##*/}"
        OUTPUT_FILE_NAME="${INPUT_FILE_NAME%.*}-${INPUT_FILE_PARENT_DIR}.${INPUT_FILE_NAME##*.}"
        # Remove 'echo' to execute the command !!!
        echo cp "${item}" "${OUTPUT_PATH}/${OUTPUT_FILE_NAME}"
    fi
done

References:

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – Find, Duplicate, Rename and Copy to this folder

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