Bash – Create Directories from List of Files with Spaces

bashfilesrhel

I have a directory with a list of files in it. All these files have spaces in their names.

I would like to create a directory, for each file, with the name of the file except the extension (which is .doc for all of them).

E.g.:

My directory content

first file.doc 
second file.doc 
third file.doc

Expected result

first file/first file.doc 
second file/second file.doc
third file/third file.doc

I have this command to know the directory name I have to create:

find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*.doc" | awk -F ".doc" '{print $1}'

With this, the result is:

first file
second file
third file

I know need to create a directory per entry.

I've tried the following with no success:

find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*.doc" | awk -F ".doc" '{print $1}' -exec mkdir '{}' \;
#error with awk: it cannot open the file -exec because it does not exist

mkdir `find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*.doc" | awk -F ".doc" '{print $1}'`
#it creates several directories per name because there are spaces in the names

mkdir `"find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*.doc" | awk -F ".doc" '{print $1}'"`
#-bash: find . -maxdepth 1 -name *.doc | awk -F .doc '{print }': command not found

mkdir "`find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*.doc" | awk -F ".doc" '{print $1}'`"
#it tries to create a unique directory with all the file names as a single name, which is not good of course

If I could, I would just remove all the spaces in the file names, but I need to keep them for project constraints :/

Once I can create these directories, I will have to figure out how to move all the files in their matching directories.
It all can be done in a single command, I'll take it 🙂

I'm using bash and RedHat 2.6.

Thanks for your help.
Laurent

Best Answer

Spaces in a file/directory name are fine as long as those names are properly quoted:

find . -maxdepth 1 -name "*.doc" | while IFS= read -r f; do 
    mkdir -- "${f%.doc}"; 
done

Related Solutions

Bash: moving files with spaces

Never, ever use for foo in $(cat bar). This is a classic mistake, commonly known as bash pitfall number 1. You should instead use:

while IFS= read -r file; do mv -- "$file" "new_place/$file"; done < file_list.txt

When you run the for loop, bash will apply wordsplitting to what it reads, meaning that a strange blue cloud will be read as a, strange, blue and cloud:

$ cat files 
a strange blue cloud.txt
$ for file in $(cat files); do echo "$file"; done
a
strange
blue
cloud.txt

Compare to:

$ while IFS= read -r file; do echo "$file"; done < files 
a strange blue cloud.txt

Or even, if you insist on the UUoC:

$ cat files | while IFS= read -r file; do echo "$file"; done
a strange blue cloud.txt

So, the while loop will read over its input and use the read to assign each line to a variable. The IFS= sets the input field separator to NULL^*, and the -r option of read stops it from interpreting backslash escapes (so that \t is treated as slash + t and not as a tab). The -- after the mv means "treat everything after the -- as an argument and not an option", which lets you deal with file names starting with - correctly.

^* _{This isn't necessary here, strictly speaking, the only benefit in this scenario is that keeps read from removing any leading or trailing whitespace, but it is a good habit to get into for when you need to deal with filenames containing newline characters, or in general, when you need to be able to deal with arbitrary file names.}

Linux – rename files to change spaces to underscore

The shell can do this pretty easily (here assuming ksh93, zsh, bash, mksh, yash or (some builds of) busybox sh for the ${var//pattern/replacement} operator):

for file in *.doc *.mp3 *.wav *.txt
do
  mv -- "$file" "${file// /_}"
done

Change the *.doc ... glob to match whatever files you're interested in renaming.

To rename all of the files in the current directory that currently have spaces in their filenames:

for file in *' '*
do
  mv -- "$file" "${file// /_}"
done

You might also consider adding a "clobber" check:

for file in *' '*
do
  if [ -e "${file// /_}" ]
  then
    printf >&2 '%s\n' "Warning, skipping $file as the renamed version already exists"
    continue
  fi

  mv -- "$file" "${file// /_}"
done

Or use mv's -i option to prompt the user before overriding a file.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash: moving files with spaces

Linux – rename files to change spaces to underscore

Related Question