Copying Files with Multiple Extensions in Bash

bashcpshellwildcards

I would like to copy files with multiple extensions to a single destination directory.

For example, I can use the following command to copy all .txt files in the working directory to a directory called destination:

cp -v *.txt destination/

And I can use the following to copy all .png directories in the working directory to destination:

cp -v *.png destination/

But it's time consuming to type these as separate commands (even with the use of command history). So, is there any way that I can tell cp to copy files with either the pattern *.txt or the pattern *.png to destination? Ideally, I would like to be able to specify more than two patterns — like instructing cp to copy all *.txt or *.png or *.jpg files to destination, for example.

I'm sure that all of this is possible using a shell script — I'm using bash, for example — but is there any way to accomplish it more simply, just from the console? Could I somehow use brace expansion to do it?

I know that it is possible to copy all files in the working directory except those matching certain specified patterns, but since my working directory contains far more file extensions that I don't want to copy than those I do, that would be a pain.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

Best Answer

Brace expansion will get the job done. man bash and search for Brace Expansion.

cp *.{txt,jpg,png} destination/

EDIT:

In keeping with the OP's request, the command above was missing the verbose option:

cp -v *.{txt,jpg,png} destination/

Related Solutions

Bash – using brace expansion to change filenames, not extensions

I found this just after I posted the question:

for f in file1.*; do mv "$f" "${f/file1/newfilename}"; done

Works like a charm.

Bash copy all files that don’t match the given extensions

You can use find to find all files in a directory tree that match (or don't match) some particular tests, and then to do something with them. For this particular problem, you could use:

find -type f ! \( -iname '*.png' -o -iname '*.gif' -o -iname '*.jpg' -o -iname '*.xcf' \) -exec echo mv {} /new/path \;

This limits the search to regular files (-type f), and then to files whose names do not (!) have the extension *.png in any casing (-iname '*.png') or (-o) *.gif, and so on. All the extensions are grouped into a single condition between $ ... $. For each matching file it runs a command (-exec) that moves the file, the name of which is inserted in place of the {}, into the directory /new/path. The \; tells find that the command is over.

The name substitution happens inside the program-execution code, so spaces and other special characters don't matter.

If you want to do this just inside Bash, you can use Bash's extended pattern matching features. These require that shopt extglob is on, and globstar too. In this case, use:

mv **/!(*.[gG][iI][fF]|*.[pP][nN][gG]|*.[xX][cC][fF]|*.[jJ][pP][gG]) /new/path

This matches all files in subdirectories (**) that do not match *.gif, *.png, etc, in any combination of character cases, and moves them into the new path. The expansion is performed by the shell, so spaces and special characters don't matter again.

The above assumes all files are in subdirectories. If not, you can repeat the part after **/ to include the current directory too.

There are similar features in zsh and other shells, but you've indicated you're using Bash.

(A further note: parsing ls is never a good idea - just don't try it.)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash – using brace expansion to change filenames, not extensions

Bash copy all files that don’t match the given extensions

Related Question