I want to find the file with the biggest number of words in a directory so I tried to use just the second line from the output of this command :
wc * -w | sort -nr
In fact I know that it will work if i saved the output to a file and used the command sed like this :
wc * -w | sort -nr >> file
sed -n "2p" file
but this is not what I want , I need to do it via the output of the command directly
I tried with a script shell like :
for i in `wc * -w | sort -nr`
do
if test $i -eq 2 then
echo "$i"
fi
done
but it was not what I expected
Thank you in advance.
find -type f -exec wc -w {} + | sort -nr | awk NR==2
use find instead, wildcard will find folders as well
pipe to awk
Here is what I am trying to achieve. I want to run a sequence of commands on that file, so for example
ls * | xargs (cat - | calculateforfile)
I want to run (cat | calculateforthisfile) on each of the file separately. So basically, how to group a list of commands as if it is one single function?
No need to use xargs. Just use a loop. You also don't need to use cat. Just redirect its input with the file.
for A in *; do
calculateforfile < "$A"
done
As a single line:
for A in *; do calculateforfile < "$A"; done
If you're looking for xargs solution for this (for example find command)
find . -name "*.txt" | xargs -I % cat %
This will cat all the files found under current directory that end in .txt
The -I option is the key there
I'm creating a list of file-names using the command:
ls | grep "\.txt$"
I'm getting a list of files:
F1.txt
F2.txt
F3.txt
F4.txt
I want to view the content of these files (using less / more / cat /...)
is there a way to do this by pipping?
(Btw, I got a list of file-names using a more complex command, this is just a simpler example for clarification)
Would this be enough?
$ cat *txt
For richer queries, you could use find and xargs:
$ find . -name "*txt" | xargs cat
you can try something like this:
#!/bin/bash
for i in *.txt
do
echo Displaying file $i ...
more $i
done
What about:
cat $(ls | grep "\.txt$")
I have a source input, input.txt
a.txt
b.txt
c.txt
I want to feed these input into a program as the following:
my-program --file=a.txt --file=b.txt --file=c.txt
So I try to use xargs, but with no luck.
cat input.txt | xargs -i echo "my-program --file"{}
It gives
my-program --file=a.txt
my-program --file=b.txt
my-program --file=c.txt
But I want
my-program --file=a.txt --file=b.txt --file=c.txt
Any idea?
Don't listen to all of them. :) Just look at this example:
echo argument1 argument2 argument3 | xargs -l bash -c 'echo this is first:$0 second:$1 third:$2'
Output will be:
this is first:argument1 second:argument2 third:argument3
None of the solutions given so far deals correctly with file names containing space. Some even fail if the file names contain ' or ". If your input files are generated by users, you should be prepared for surprising file names.
GNU Parallel deals nicely with these file names and gives you (at least) 3 different solutions. If your program takes 3 and only 3 arguments then this will work:
(echo a1.txt; echo b1.txt; echo c1.txt;
echo a2.txt; echo b2.txt; echo c2.txt;) |
parallel -N 3 my-program --file={1} --file={2} --file={3}
Or:
(echo a1.txt; echo b1.txt; echo c1.txt;
echo a2.txt; echo b2.txt; echo c2.txt;) |
parallel -X -N 3 my-program --file={}
If, however, your program takes as many arguments as will fit on the command line:
(echo a1.txt; echo b1.txt; echo c1.txt;
echo d1.txt; echo e1.txt; echo f1.txt;) |
parallel -X my-program --file={}
Watch the intro video to learn more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpaiGYxkSuQ
How about:
echo $'a.txt\nb.txt\nc.txt' | xargs -n 3 sh -c '
echo my-program --file="$1" --file="$2" --file="$3"
' argv0
It's simpler if you use two xargs invocations: 1st to transform each line into --file=..., 2nd to actually do the xargs thing ->
$ cat input.txt | xargs -I# echo --file=# | xargs echo my-program
my-program --file=a.txt --file=b.txt --file=c.txt
You can use sed to prefix --file= to each line and then call xargs:
sed -e 's/^/--file=/' input.txt | xargs my-program
Here is a solution using sed for three arguments, but is limited in that it applies the same transform to each argument:
cat input.txt | sed 's/^/--file=/g' | xargs -n3 my-program
Here's a method that will work for two args, but allows more flexibility:
cat input.txt | xargs -n 2 | xargs -I{} sh -c 'V="{}"; my-program -file=${V% *} -file=${V#* }'
I stumbled on a similar problem and found a solution which I think is nicer and cleaner than those presented so far.
The syntax for xargs that I have ended with would be (for your example):
xargs -I X echo --file=X
with a full command line being:
my-program $(cat input.txt | xargs -I X echo --file=X)
which will work as if
my-program --file=a.txt --file=b.txt --file=c.txt
was done (providing input.txt contains data from your example).
Actually, in my case I needed to first find the files and also needed them sorted so my command line looks like this:
my-program $(find base/path -name "some*pattern" -print0 | sort -z | xargs -0 -I X echo --files=X)
Few details that might not be clear (they were not for me):
some*pattern must be quoted since otherwise shell would expand it before passing to find.
-print0, then -z and finally -0 use null-separation to ensure proper handling of files with spaces or other wired names.
Note however that I didn't test it deeply yet. Though it seems to be working.
xargs doesn't work that way. Try:
myprogram $(sed -e 's/^/--file=/' input.txt)
It's because echo prints a newline. Try something like
echo my-program `xargs --arg-file input.txt -i echo -n " --file "{}`
I was looking for a solution for this exact problem and came to the conclution of coding a script in the midle.
to transform the standard output for the next example use the -n '\n' delimeter
example:
user#mybox:~$ echo "file1.txt file2.txt" | xargs -n1 ScriptInTheMiddle.sh
inside the ScriptInTheMidle.sh:
!#/bin/bash
var1=`echo $1 | cut -d ' ' -f1 `
var2=`echo $1 | cut -d ' ' -f2 `
myprogram "--file1="$var1 "--file2="$var2
For this solution to work you need to have a space between those arguments file1.txt and file2.txt, or whatever delimeter you choose, one more thing, inside the script make sure you check -f1 and -f2 as they mean "take the first word and take the second word" depending on the first delimeter's position found (delimeters could be ' ' ';' '.' whatever you wish between single quotes .
Add as many parameters as you wish.
Problem solved using xargs, cut , and some bash scripting.
Cheers!
if you wanna pass by I have some useful tips http://hongouru.blogspot.com
Actually, it's relatively easy:
... | sed 's/^/--prefix=/g' | xargs echo | xargs -I PARAMS your_cmd PARAMS
The sed 's/^/--prefix=/g' is optional, in case you need to prefix each param with some --prefix=.
The xargs echo turns the list of param lines (one param in each line) into a list of params in a single line and the xargs -I PARAMS your_cmd PARAMS allows you to run a command, placing the params where ever you want.
So cat input.txt | sed 's/^/--file=/g' | xargs echo | xargs -I PARAMS my-program PARAMS does what you need (assuming all lines within input.txt are simple and qualify as a single param value each).
There is another nice way of doing this, if you do not know the number of files upront:
my-program $(find . -name '*.txt' -printf "--file=%p ")
Nobody has mentioned echoing out from a loop yet, so I'll put that in for completeness sake (it would be my second approach, the sed one being the first):
for line in $(< input.txt) ; do echo --file=$line ; done | xargs echo my-program
Old but this is a better answer:
cat input.txt | gsed "s/\(.*\)/\-\-file=\1/g" | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs my_program
# i like clean one liners
gsed is just gnu sed to ensure syntax matches version brew install gsed or just sed if your on gnu linux already...
test it:
cat input.txt | gsed "s/\(.*\)/\-\-file=\1/g" | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs echo my_program
I'm having some rather unusual problems using grep in a bash script. Below is an example of the bash script code that I'm using that exhibits the behaviour:
UNIQ_SCAN_INIT_POINT=1
cat "$FILE_BASENAME_LIST" | uniq -d >> $UNIQ_LIST
sed '/^$/d' $UNIQ_LIST >> $UNIQ_LIST_FINAL
UNIQ_LINE_COUNT=`wc -l $UNIQ_LIST_FINAL | cut -d \ -f 1`
while [ -n "`cat $UNIQ_LIST_FINAL | sed "$UNIQ_SCAN_INIT_POINT"'q;d'`" ]; do
CURRENT_LINE=`cat $UNIQ_LIST_FINAL | sed "$UNIQ_SCAN_INIT_POINT"'q;d'`
CURRENT_DUPECHK_FILE=$FILE_DUPEMATCH-$CURRENT_LINE
grep $CURRENT_LINE $FILE_LOCTN_LIST >> $CURRENT_DUPECHK_FILE
MATCH=`grep -c $CURRENT_LINE $FILE_BASENAME_LIST`
CMD_ECHO="$CURRENT_LINE matched $MATCH times," cmd_line_echo
echo "$CURRENT_DUPECHK_FILE" >> $FILE_DUPEMATCH_FILELIST
let UNIQ_SCAN_INIT_POINT=UNIQ_SCAN_INIT_POINT+1
done
On numerous occasions, when grepping for the current line in the file location list, it has put no output to the current dupechk file even though there have definitely been matches to the current line in the file location list (I ran the command in terminal with no issues).
I've rummaged around the internet to see if anyone else has had similar behaviour, and thus far all I have found is that it is something to do with buffered and unbuffered outputs from other commands operating before the grep command in the Bash script....
However no one seems to have found a solution, so basically I'm asking you guys if you have ever come across this, and any idea/tips/solutions to this problem...
Regards
Paul
The `problem' is the standard I/O library. When it is writing to a terminal
it is unbuffered, but if it is writing to a pipe then it sets up buffering.
try changing
CURRENT_LINE=`cat $UNIQ_LIST_FINAL | sed "$UNIQ_SCAN_INIT_POINT"'q;d'`
to
CURRENT LINE=`sed "$UNIQ_SCAN_INIT_POINT"'q;d' $UNIQ_LIST_FINAL`
Are there any directories with spaces in their names in $FILE_LOCTN_LIST? Because if they are, those spaces will need escaped somehow. Some combination of find and xargs can usually deal with that for you, especially xargs -0
A small bash script using md5sum and sort that detects duplicate files in the current directory:
CURRENT="" md5sum * |
sort |
while read md5sum filename;
do
[[ $CURRENT == $md5sum ]] && echo $filename is duplicate;
CURRENT=$md5sum;
done
you tagged linux, some i assume you have tools like GNU find,md5sum,uniq, sort etc. here's a simple example to find duplicate files
$ echo "hello world">file
$ md5sum file
6f5902ac237024bdd0c176cb93063dc4 file
$ cp file file1
$ md5sum file1
6f5902ac237024bdd0c176cb93063dc4 file1
$ echo "blah" > file2
$ md5sum file2
0d599f0ec05c3bda8c3b8a68c32a1b47 file2
$ find . -type f -exec md5sum "{}" \; |sort -n | uniq -w32 -D
6f5902ac237024bdd0c176cb93063dc4 ./file
6f5902ac237024bdd0c176cb93063dc4 ./file1