creating a new directory each time a shell script is run on linux - linux

Question

I'm trying to create a shell script that copies .log files from one directory to a new directory, with a new name each time the script is run.
For example lets say there's File1.log, File2.log, File3.log in /home/usr/logs
and when this script runs, I want them to be copied to a new location /home/usr/savedlogs/Run1 and the next time it runs.../home/usr/savedlog/Run2 and so on...
I'm not sure if this would be used:
cp /home/usr/logs/{File1.log,File2.log,File3.log} /home/usr/savedlogs
I'm hoping this is possible in a shell script. Thank you all for your help in advance, greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Here is a simple script that might suffice your requirement:
#!/bin/bash
# Get the number of Run* directories present
newnum=$(ls -ld /home/usr/savedlogs/Run* 2>/dev/null | wc -l)
mkdir -p /home/usr/savedlogs/Run${newnum}
cp /home/usr/logs/*.log /home/usr/savedlogs/Run${newnum}
This will start from Run0 and proceeds from there

Answer 2

If you do not care about incrementing directory names, you can do this with a simple timestamp:
DIR=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)
mkdir $DIR
cp /home/usr/logs/FileXXX.log /home/usr/savedlogs/$DIR/
This will work as long as your copy operation happens less than once a second.

Answer 3

You may try with newDir=$(ls -l /home/usr/savedlogs | grep Run | wc -l) for getting the existing number of directories.
So the whole script will look like this :
newDir=$(ls -l /home/usr/savedlogs | grep Run | wc -l)
mkdir -p /home/usr/savedlogs/Run${newDir}
cp /home/usr/logs/*.log /home/usr/savedlogs/Run${newDir}
First folder will be Run0, next Run1 and so on...