Find Command – How to Integrate mv Command After Find Command

filesfindmv

I am searching for files which name which contain AAA within their path using following command:

find path_A -name "*AAA*"

Given the output showed by the above command, I want to move those files into another path, say path_B. Instead of moving those file one by one, can I optimize the command by moving those files right after the find command?

Best Answer

With GNU mv:

find path_A -name '*AAA*' -exec mv -t path_B {} +

That will use find's -exec option which replaces the {} with each find result in turn and runs the command you give it. As explained in man find:

   -exec command ;
          Execute  command;  true  if 0 status is returned.  All following
          arguments to find are taken to be arguments to the command until
          an  argument  consisting of `;' is encountered.

In this case, we are using the + version of -exec so that we run as few mv operations as possible:

   -exec command {} +
          This  variant  of the -exec action runs the specified command on
          the selected files, but the command line is built  by  appending
          each  selected file name at the end; the total number of invoca‐
          tions of the command will  be  much  less  than  the  number  of
          matched  files.   The command line is built in much the same way
          that xargs builds its command lines.  Only one instance of  `{}'
          is  allowed  within the command.  The command is executed in the
          starting directory.
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