Bash Script looping on Find Command: output has spaces

Question

I have the following code which attempts to find all files which match certain patterns and copy them to a new directory, adding a suffix if the file already exists. This is because duplicate filenames appear in the original list - as they are found in different directories.

It works as expected except fot filenames containing spaces which the for in loop takes as delimiters.

This code is from various parts of stackoverflow, which I have used and I do not fully understand.

I have tried various combinations of quoting the filename, to the extent I only copied files with spaces.

Can someone advise as to how I can resolve this problem

patterns=( "wom*.gif" "StarB*.gif" "logos*.gif" )
for pattern in "${patterns[@]}"
do
  for fname in $(find $source -name $pattern); 
  do
    echo Path-and-Filename: $fname
    filename=$(basename "$fname")
    extension=${filename##*.}
    filename=${filename%.*}
    echo Just-Filename: $filename.$extension
    suffix=""
    count=0
    while [ -f $dest$filename$suffix.$extension ]
    do
      count=$(($count+1))
      suffix="("$count")"
    done

    cp -v -p "$fname" $dest"$filename"$suffix.$extension >>$dest"CopyImageFiles-"$(date +"%Y-%m-%d").log 2>>$dest"CopyImageFiles-"$(date +"%Y-%m-%d").log
  done
done

mcl · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-07 15:44:33Z

Well I got it to work, using @ormaaj's idea of using a while loop for reading. I have not worked out properly what it does, but I have now copied all my files and that is what I wanted.

I am sure it is still 'fragile' and any advice would be appreciated.

I did not use -print0 as I did not know how to read the lines of the output, it appeared as one long line. I assume I needed to set the delimiter for each filename, but could not figure it out. The brain is very slow nowadays.

patterns=( "*.gif" "*.GIF" "*.tif"  "*.TIF" "*.jpg" "*.JPG" "*.png" "*.PNG")
for pattern in "${patterns[@]}"
do
  find "/Volumes/Public/media_pics" -name "$pattern" | while IFS= read -r fname;
    do
      echo Full-Filename: "$fname"
      filename=$(basename "$fname")
      extension=${filename##*.}
      filename=${filename%.*}
      echo Just-Filename: $filename.$extension
      suffix=""
      count=0
      while [ -f $dest$filename$suffix.$extension ]
      do
        count=$(($count+1))
        suffix="("$count")"
      done

      cp -v -p "$fname" "$dest$filename$suffix.$extension" >>$dest"CopyImageFiles-"$(date +"%Y-%m-%d").log 2>>$dest"CopyImageFiles-"$(date +"%Y-%m-%d").log
  done
done

H.-Dirk Schmitt · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-07 11:59:50Z

0

You have done in partially good.

for pattern in "${pattern[@]}" works fine, the spaces are preserved to the pattern variable.

for fname in $(find $source -name $pattern); is broken.
Keep in mind that pattern contains a space.
Fix it to:

for fname in $(find "$source" -name "$pattern");

Adding quotes to the further statements is left as an exercise ;-)

edited Mar 7, 2013 at 11:59

answered Mar 7, 2013 at 11:43

H.-Dirk Schmitt

1,1698 silver badges14 bronze badges

6 Comments

mcl Over a year ago

Sorry - it does not appear any different, the filenames with spaces are creating multiple entries in the for in loop split at the space character.

ormaaj Over a year ago

Wrong. You can't iterate over filenames this way. At least you've helped improve the odds the script doesn't fail before reaching the problem.

H.-Dirk Schmitt Over a year ago

@mcl see the added line about the exercise ;-)

mcl Over a year ago

@ormaaj I read your references and tried to implement Don't read lines with for but I obviously got it wrong as I got an ambiguous redirect error after searching for the matching files. I tried while IFS= read -r aline; do echo "$aline" ; done < $(find "/Volumes/Public/media_pics" -name "*.gif")

ormaaj Over a year ago

@mcl You want a process substitution <(...), $(...) is a command substitution. You also probably want to follow the instructions regarding find with nul-delimited output (-print0).

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