Shell

File management

cp -R path/source path/target

Copy directories.

find . -name '.DS_Store' -type f -delete

Delete all .DS_Store files recursively.

File management, batching

https://stackoverflow.com/a/24265787

find

Search for files in a directory.

find <dir> <pattern> <action>

For example:

find . -name \*.jpg -type f -print0

• . searches current directory (recursively)
• -name case sensitive search
• -iname case insensitive
• \*.jpg pattern (why \?)
• -print0 print filename, for e.g. to use with pipe |
• -exec <command> {}; - <command> command to run, e.g.cp-{}gets replaced with current file -;` terminates command

find . \( -name \*.jpg -o -name \*.jpeg \) -print0

• -o for Or

find . -name "*.jpg" -delete

• Dedicated find flag for deleting files.

• The pattern is quoted here, another alternative is to escape the asterisk as in a previous example

• -type f selects files only (also d for directory and l for symlink)

• -print0 print filename

• -exec <command> {}; - <command> command to run, e.g.cp-{}gets replaced with current file -;` terminates command

xargs

Execute commands from standard input. Use | to pipe commands to xargs.

find . -name \*.jpg -print0 | xargs -I{} -0 cp -v -f {} /home/dir

• -I{} replacement string
• -0 separate items with a null character
• cp options: -v for Verbose, -f for Force`

find -exec vs find | xargs

Practical examples

Find all video files in a tree

• Just a quick list of video file extensions, not exhaustive.
• Probably not a safe copy, since the original tree may have duplicate file names in different directories, but cp will overwrite them and only keep the last one in the flattened target directory.

find . \( -name \*.webm -o -name \*.mkv -o -name \*.flv -o -name \*.vob -o -name \*.ogv -o -name \*.avi -o -name \*.mov -o -name \*.wmv -o -name \*.asf -o -name \*.mp4 -o -name \*.m4p -o -name \*.m4v -o -name \*.mpeg -o -name \*.mpv -o -name \*.mp2 -o -name \*.3gp -o -name \*.swf \) -print0 | xargs -I{} -0 cp -v -f {} /home/dir