Ubuntu – Rename a file to parent directory’s name in terminal

bashcommand line

I have to deal with a large number of files nested inside of directories (one file per directory), resembling something like this:

fred/result.txt
john/result.txt
mary/result.txt
...

I am currently using the following command to process each of those files:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type d \( ! -name . \) -exec bash -c \"cd '{}' && processResult result.txt\" \;

I am looking for something I can add into the end of this command that will change the filenames to fred.txt, etc. and then later move the file into the parent directory to eliminate the extra layer of directories.

What would be the best way to do this?

Best Answer

We can use the classical approach : find with while read combo:

Demo:

$ ls *
fred:
results.txt

jane:
results.txt

john:
results.txt

$> find . -type f -name "results.txt" -printf "/%P\n" | while read FILE ; do DIR=$(dirname "$FILE" );\                            
>  mv ."$FILE" ."$DIR""$DIR".txt;done                                                                                             
$> ls
fred/  jane/  john/
$> ls *
fred:
fred.txt

jane:
jane.txt

john:
john.txt

Use echo before using mv to test the line with your files.

Minor improvement

We can embed the call to bash into exec , with parameter expansion (specifically prefix removal). Basically it's embedding a script into exec call.

$> find "$PWD" -type f -name "results.txt" -exec bash -c ' DIR=$( dirname "{}"  ); echo "{}" "$DIR"/"${DIR##*/}".txt  ' \;                
/home/xieerqi/TESTDIR/fred/results.txt /home/xieerqi/TESTDIR/fred/fred.txt
/home/xieerqi/TESTDIR/jane/results.txt /home/xieerqi/TESTDIR/jane/jane.txt
/home/xieerqi/TESTDIR/john/results.txt /home/xieerqi/TESTDIR/john/john.txt

To make the command general, (working for any file, not just results.txt) just remove -name "results.txt" part. Also see this post for alternative Python solution to this.

Copying files from a source- into a target directory, adding the containg folder's name to the file

The script below will copy files recursively from a source directory into a flat directory, adding the name of the (direct) superior directory to the file's name. The directory's name will be inserted before possible extension on the file, exacvtly like your example.

The script

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import os
import sys
import shutil

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(sys.argv[1]):
    for f in files:
        # split off the superior directory's name
        dirname = root.split("/")[-1]
        # define file+path, possible extension position
        src = os.path.join(root, f); spl = f.rfind(".")
        # defining new filename
        newname = f[:spl]+"_"+dirname + f[spl:] if spl != -1 else f+"_"+dirname
        # copy the file into the new directory
        shutil.copyfile(src, os.path.join(sys.argv[2], newname))

How to use

Copy the script intyo an empty file, save it as copyandrename.py

Run it with the source- and target directories as arguments:

python3 /path/to/copyandrename.py <source_directory> <target_directory>

My test command was e.g.

python3 '/home/jacob/Bureaublad/pscript_4.py' '/home/jacob/Bureaublad/testmap' '/home/jacob/Bureaublad/target'

As always, please test on a sample first!

Ubuntu – How to move files from subdirectories that have the same directory name to its relative upper/parent directory

If you want a find solution, you could use this:

find parent -name "source" -type d -exec bash -c 'cd "$1"; mv * ..' bash {} \;

Explanation:

find parent -name "source" -type d - For each directory named source in parent...
-exec bash -c '...' bash {} \; - Call Bash with bash as $0 and the directory path as $1
cd "$1"; mv * .. - cd into the directory; move all its contents up one level.
- Alternative: mv "$1"/* "$1/.."

This is more or less based on dessert's answer.

Including hidden files

find parent -name "source" -type d -exec bash -c 'shopt -s dotglob; cd "$1"; mv * ..' bash {} \;

shopt -s dotglob - Make globs include hidden files

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to copy files from multiple directories, adding the parent folder’s name to the filename

Copying files from a source- into a target directory, adding the containg folder's name to the file

The script

How to use

Ubuntu – How to move files from subdirectories that have the same directory name to its relative upper/parent directory

Including hidden files

Related Question