CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxbashshellunixscripting
gmhk
gmhk

Reputation: 15940

parsing ls -R output into a variable in Unix

I am executing a ls-R /files/

I got the following output

./:    nvision
./nvision:    layout
./nvision/layout:    abcd.txt

I am looking to get path in the listing like 

/nvision
/nvision/layout/
/nvision/layout/abcd.txt

and I should be able to copy the required path to a variable

ps: I am not searching for nvision I am trying to get the list of folders and files under files folder

can any one help me with that

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2158

Answers (3)

redent84
redent84

Reputation: 19239

Have you tried using find (see reference)

It would be as easy as find . to get the list of files and folders inside the current directory. Change the . to any path to obtain the list of files and directories inside that path:

nvision
nvision/abcd.txt
nvision/layout

To save it to a variable

var=`find .`

And to add the initial slash to every line (if required)

var=`find . -exec echo /{} \;`

Here var has no special meaning, it's just the variable name.

To later use the variable you can use $var or ${var}. For example, to print it or save it to file:

# Print the variable content
echo $var

# Save the content of var to a file
echo $var > /tmp/file.txt

Upvotes: 4

V H
V H

Reputation: 8587

well the answer is all over this page you should be using find which lists all files found yo can define

where . is current folder otherwise replace . with path you are wishing to search

find .-type d -print

which lists directories only or find

or 

find . -type f -print

which will list all files only

if you are looking for both then 

find . -print

and if you only wish to define recursive level try

find . -maxdepth 1 -print

and here is a script 

#!/bin/bash
for names in $(find . -type f -print); do
    echo $names
done

Upvotes: 1

t6d
t6d

Reputation: 2623

You should really use find for these kind of things. Simply use find directory. If you require more specific output formatting you can make use of find's -printf option. Find is a really powerful tool that also allows all kinds of filtering. Make sure you check the documentation for more information: GNU FindUtils.

To store the results in a variable use one of the following statements:

result=`find ...`

or

result=$(find ...)

You can also use find to directly execute a command for each match using find's -exec option. Again, make sure to check out the documentation. It's really comprehensive.

Update (Mac / UNIX users – Linux users are not affected)

BSD find requires a path. Use

find .

instead of just

find

if you require a listing of all files in your working directory.

Upvotes: 2

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