CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashshellmacosgrep
Mint
Mint

Reputation: 15917

List files with certain extensions with ls and grep

I just want to get the files from the current dir and only output .mp4 .mp3 .exe files nothing else. So I thought I could just do this:

ls | grep \.mp4$ | grep \.mp3$ | grep \.exe$

But no, as the first grep will output just mp4's therefor the other 2 grep's won't be used.

Any ideas? PS, Running this script on Slow Leopard.

Upvotes: 211

Views: 352956

Answers (12)

Mohamed Hassou
Mohamed Hassou

Reputation: 11

it is easy try to use this command :

ls | grep \.txt$ && ls | grep \.exe

Upvotes: 0

Jyoti Prakash
Jyoti Prakash

Reputation: 4017

Here is one example that worked for me.

find <mainfolder path> -name '*myfiles.java' | xargs -n 1 basename

Upvotes: -1

mob
mob

Reputation: 118605

egrep -- extended grep -- will help here

ls | egrep '\.mp4$|\.mp3$|\.exe$'

should do the job.

Upvotes: 63

Dennis Williamson
Dennis Williamson

Reputation: 360005

Use regular expressions with find:

find . -iregex '.*\.\(mp3\|mp4\|exe\)' -printf '%f\n'

If you're piping the filenames:

find . -iregex '.*\.\(mp3\|mp4\|exe\)' -printf '%f\0' | xargs -0 dosomething

This protects filenames that contain spaces or newlines.

OS X find only supports alternation when the -E (enhanced) option is used.

find -E . -regex '.*\.(mp3|mp4|exe)'

Upvotes: 49

james2doyle
james2doyle

Reputation: 1429

For OSX users:

If you use ls *.{mp3,exe,mp4}, it will throw an error if one of those extensions has no results.

Using ls *.(mp3|exe|mp4) will return all files matching those extensions, even if one of the extensions had 0 results.

Upvotes: 7

Hai Vu
Hai Vu

Reputation: 40688

In case you are still looking for an alternate solution:

ls | grep -i -e '\\.tcl$' -e '\\.exe$' -e '\\.mp4$'

Feel free to add more -e flags if needed.

Upvotes: 5

vardamanpk
vardamanpk

Reputation: 17

ls -R | findstr ".mp3"

ls -R => lists subdirectories recursively

Upvotes: 0

meder omuraliev
meder omuraliev

Reputation: 186562

Why not:

ls *.{mp3,exe,mp4}

I'm not sure where I learned it - but I've been using this.

Upvotes: 443

Joshua K
Joshua K

Reputation: 527

the easiest way is to just use ls

ls *.mp4 *.mp3 *.exe

Upvotes: 21

camh
camh

Reputation: 42448

No need for grep. Shell wildcards will do the trick.

ls *.mp4 *.mp3 *.exe

If you have run

shopt -s nullglob

then unmatched globs will be removed altogether and not be left on the command line unexpanded.

If you want case-insensitive globbing (so *.mp3 will match foo.MP3):

shopt -s nocaseglob

Upvotes: 14

P Shved
P Shved

Reputation: 99254

Just in case: why don't you use find?

find -iname '*.mp3' -o -iname '*.exe' -o -iname '*.mp4'

Upvotes: 12

Jeff Mc
Jeff Mc

Reputation: 3793

ls | grep "\.mp4$
\.mp3$
\.exe$"

Upvotes: 4

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