How to harvest files from several directories - CLI

[zenfunk]

Hi everyone,
I'm in the process oflearning Bash scripting. Right now I want to harvest all the .png files from several subfolders (all are in one master folder) and put them all in one target folder. I played a bit with ls -R and grep *.png, but this aparently gets me nowhere. I know there must be a simple solution, but I seem to lack the skills. Could anyone of you commandline ninjas show me towards the right direction?
Thank you very much in advance,
Christian

[HiImTye]

for f in /path/to/folder1/*.png /path/to/folder2/*.png /path/to/folder3/*.png; do
# cp $f
# mv $f
done

replace the folders with the ones you want. if you want to copy, remove the # before cp; the # before mv for move

[zenfunk]

for f in /path/to/folder1/*.png /path/to/folder2/*.png /path/to/folder3/*.png; do
# cp $f
# mv $f
done

replace the folders with the ones you want. if you want to copy, remove the # before cp; the # before mv for move

Brilliant. Is there a way to look into these folders recursively? So I only have to specify the main folder, not each individual subfolder?

Thanks for your efforts,
Christian

[HermanAB]

Howdy,

Learn how to use the 'find' command, with the 'exec' option. Read the man page.

The reason why Bash looping is so cripple, is because 'find' does it all.

[HiImTye]

for f in /path/to/folder1/*.png /path/to/folder2/*.png /path/to/folder3/*.png; do
# cp $f
# mv $f
done

replace the folders with the ones you want. if you want to copy, remove the # before cp; the # before mv for move

helps if I have an out folder, should be

out="/path/to/folder"
for f in /path/to/folder1/*.png /path/to/folder2/*.png /path/to/folder3/*.png; do
#cp "$f" "$out"
#mv "$f" "$out"
done

for recursive, use something like

in="/path/to/folder1/
/path/to/folder2/
/path/to/folder3/"
out="/path/to/folder"
while read -r f; do
#cp -R "$f" "$out"
#mv -R "$f" "$out"
done< <(echo -e "$test")

if you're saving them as scripts then set out to "$1" and in to "$2" then execute them as

scriptName "/path/to/folder anywhere"
#-- or --
scriptName "/path/to/folder anywhere" "/path/to/folder1
/path/to/folder2
/path/to/folder3"

lastly, if you're saving scripts, it's a good idea to make line 1

#!/bin/bash

[HiImTye]

Howdy,

Learn how to use the 'find' command, with the 'exec' option. Read the man page.

The reason why Bash looping is so cripple, is because 'find' does it all.

I prefer locate, it's faster, and bash is anything but crippled if you know how to use it. Linux commands work the Unix way, "do one thing, really well" because you can redirect their output

[Vaphell]

find is the tool for file search and manipulation of the results, there is nothing better.

mkdir /dest/dir
find /src/dir -iname '*.png' -exec mv '{}' /dest/dir \;

[HiImTye]

I prefer the speed of

mkdir /out/dir/
locate --regex '/path/to/wherever/.*.png' '/path/to/wherever else/.*.png' | while read f; do mv "$f" /out/dir/; done

which takes about a half second, compared to a half minute with find

[Vaphell]

and what if the database that locate uses is not up to date? find doesn't care about it.

[Grenage]

Indeed, when it comes to handling files across directories, find is the tool I use the most - by far.