Ubuntu – Same command for all files on folder and output on the same file

bashcommand lineffmpeg

I am new on linux and I want to make a loop on file to do the same command on all files in a folder, the command include the file name:

ffmpeg -i REC_2019_08_31_11_52_30_F.MP4 REC_2019_08_31_11_52_30_F.ass

I tried with

for f in files do ''command'' done

but it didn't work.

Best Answer

A for loop converting every .MP4 file in the current directory with Parameter Expansion for the file extension change would look like this:

for i in *.MP4; do
  ffmpeg -i "$i" "${i/%MP4/ass}"
done

${i/%MP4/ass} expands to the currently processed filename with the last occurence of “MP4” replaced by “ass”. Another way of achieving the same is to cut the string from the last dot and add the new extension: ${i%.*}.ass

In a case of multiple, probably lasting operations like this I really like to use GNU parallel, which by running jobs in parallel can highly increase the speed. The above loop with parallel would simply be:

parallel ffmpeg -i {} {.}.ass ::: *.MP4

The Bash for loop

for f in ./*.doc; do
    # do some stuff here with "$f"
    # remember to quote it or spaces may misbehave
done

Using `find`

The find command has a lovely little exec command that's great for running things (with some caveats). Find is better than basic globbing because you can really filter down on the files you're selecting. Be careful of the odd syntax.

find . -iname '*.doc' -exec echo "File is {}" \;

Note that find is recursive so you might want to use -maxdepth 1 to keep find in current working directory. -type f can be used to filter out regular files.

If we're just renaming doc to txt...

The rename command is sed-like in searching. Obviously this won't do anything to convert the format.

rename 's/doc$/txt/' *.doc

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash Command for Each File in a Folder – Script Guide

The Bash for loop

Using find

If we're just renaming doc to txt...

Related Question

Using `find`