CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashfor-loop
CaptainObv
CaptainObv

Reputation: 422

bash: for loop to retrieve all files in directory only returns one

I have made a directory with lots of files with:

samplefile_111222015_reporting_{1..13}

I am trying to create a vi script where when I enter the directory as an argument to the command e.g.

sh myScript $HOME/theDir/*

then it copies all the files in that directory to a new one I made. Although right now, I'm having problems with the for loop alone. This is what I have in my script:

for f in $1;
do
echo "$f"
done

but when i enter sh myScript $HOME/theDir, I get back the name of the first file only (samplefile_111222015_reporting_1). why the first file? Is this not a for loop>

Upvotes: 0

Views: 395

Answers (2)

user3477804
user3477804

Reputation:

This is because each file is passed as a separate argument and you're only looping over $1, which is the first argument.

Instead, you most likely want to loop over "$@", which is every argument starting from $1.

The man page for bash, under the Special Parameters section, details the special parameters available in more detail.

Upvotes: 0

balabhi
balabhi

Reputation: 641

# Because of the wild card expansion, all the files in the directory are  
# already made available to the script  through arguments  
# So do the following to get all the file listing  
for f ; do echo $f; done

Upvotes: 2

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