CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashubuntu
skyeagle
skyeagle

Reputation: 7325

bash: processing (recursively) through all files in a directory

I want to write a bash script that (recursively) processes all files of a certain type.

I know I can get the matching file list by using find thusly:

find . -name "*.ext"

I want to use this in a script:

  1. recursively obatin list of files with a given extension
  2. obtain the full file pathname
  3. pass the full pathname to another script
  4. Check the return code from the script. If non zero, log the name of the file that could not be processed.

My first attempt looks (pseudocode) like this:

ROOT_DIR = ~/work/projects
cd $ROOT_DIR
for f in `find . -name "*.ext"`
do
    #need to lop off leading './' from filename, but I havent worked out how to use
    #cut yet
    newname = `echo $f | cut -c 3
    filename = "$ROOT_DIR/$newname"

    retcode = ./some_other_script $filename

    if $retcode ne 0
       logError("Failed to process file: $filename")
done

This is my first attempt at writing a bash script, so the snippet above is not likely to run. Hopefully though, the logic of what I'm trying to do is clear enough, and someone can show how to join the dots and convert the pseudocode above into a working script.

I am running on Ubuntu

Upvotes: 8

Views: 13371

Answers (2)

tokland
tokland

Reputation: 67910

Using | while read to iterate over file names is fine as long as there are no files with carrier return to be processed:

find . -name '*.ext' | while IFS=$'\n' read -r FILE; do
  process "$(readlink -f "$FILE")" || echo "error processing: $FILE"
done

Upvotes: 2

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

Reputation: 799560

find . -name '*.ext' \( -exec ./some_other_script "$PWD"/{} \; -o -print \)

Upvotes: 18

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