Find files from text file and move them to folder

[KLStringer]

OK made a copy.txt script in it I have

while read file
do 
echo "$file"
find /home/**/recordings -name "*$file" -exec cp "{}" /home/temp 
done < /home/**/recordings/missing_files.txt

and it reads the file and for each file name it gives an error and nothing is copied, even the files that I know are there.

find: missing argument to '-exec'

[Vaphell]

while multiline script removes the need to separate the commands with ;, you still need that \; for exec - it tells find where exec part ends

[KLStringer]

Ok added the \; back in and it prints all the file names on the screen but nothing is copied over to temp

while read file
do 
echo "$file"
find /home/**/recordings -name "*$file" -exec cp "{}" /home/temp \;
done < /home/**/recordings/missing_files.txt

I changed the echo "$file" line to echo "$file" > /home/temp/echo.txt as it was scrolling off the screen to fast to read what it was saying. When I check the file all it has in it is the name of the last file in the missing_files.txt file.


EDIT: I may not have saved the script after commenting out the -exec part because now it doesn't print anything to the screen, it creates the echo.txt file but still nothing is copied over.

EDIT2: It stopped printing to the screen because I changed the echo line to output to a file, still doesn't copy any files over

[Vaphell]

when you redirect output to file you can either overwrite it with > or append to it with >>
you used > so each loop iteration overwrote your test output file.

add -v parameter (verbose) to cp command so you get a visual clue in case something is being copied (cp -v "{}" /home/temp)

[KLStringer]

*Homer*
D'OH!
*/Homer*

I forgot that the /home/**/recordings "folder" is a link to a different location and I don't think find was following the link so I've changed the pathing and rerunning, fingers crossed that solved the problem.

[KLStringer]

I let it run over night and it only read 2 file names out of 4351 in the file, there is a lot of recordings to search through though (about 6.5TB) but can't imagine it would only make it through 2 in 24 hours.

while read file
 do
  echo "$file" >> /home/temp/echo.txt
         find /media/recordings -name "*$file" -exec cp -v "{}" /home/temp \;
  done < /media/recordings/HarpUMGMissing.txt

[KLStringer]

Is there anyway to speed up this process? It's been running or about a week now and has only made it through 365/4351 and I have another list of 475 recordings to find.


EDIT: How does find treat * in a file name? Does it treat it as a wildcard or as a * character? I ask because I'm only given the part of the file name that's unique to the recordings I need.

[KLStringer]

Somethings not working correctly it's moving files that are not in the file of recordings to copy.

[code]
while read file
do
echo "$file" >> /home/temp/echo.txt
find /home/**/recordings -name "*$file" -exec cp "{}" /home/temp \;
done < /media/recordings/Move.txt
[code]

[matt_symes]

Hi

Somethings not working correctly it's moving files that are not in the file of recordings to copy.

while read file
 do
  echo "$file" >> /home/temp/echo.txt
         find /home/**/recordings -name "*$file" -exec cp "{}" /home/temp \;
  done < /media/recordings/Move.txt

Remove the * before $FILE. That may be the cause of your problem.

while read file
 do
  echo "$file" >> /home/temp/echo.txt
         find /home/**/recordings -name "$file" -exec cp "{}" /home/temp \;
  done < /media/recordings/Move.txt

/home/**/recordings/. This may also be a problem depending on your directory structure.

Kind regards

[KLStringer]

Thanks for tip, I'll take the * out and re-run it, I censored the /home/**/recordings I have the full path in the script.