'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory

'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory

[zzapper]

Hi
I want to 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory.
Should be trivial but cant think how w/o creating a temporary file



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http://successtheory.com/tips/ Vim, Zsh, MySQL Tips

Re: 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory

[Heinrich Götzger]

zzapper wrote:
> Hi
> I want to 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory.
> Should be trivial but cant think how w/o creating a temporary file
> 
> 
> 

Are you looking for smth like:

find . -type f -exec grep -e "a certain string" {} \; -exec mv {} tmp \;

HTH

Heinrich

Re: 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory

[Matt Wozniski]

> Are you looking for smth like:
>
> find . -type f -exec grep -e "a certain string" {} \; -exec mv {} tmp \;
>
> HTH

Heinrich's suggestion would move files both in the current directory
and subdirectories that match your search string.  If you only want
the current directory, you should be fine to use a

mv *somestring* tmp

~Matt

PS - Sorry Heinrich, I accidentally sent this to you instead of the
list at first.  My bad.  :)

On 10/31/06, Heinrich Götzger <goetzger@gmx.de> wrote:
> zzapper wrote:
> > Hi
> > I want to 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory.
> > Should be trivial but cant think how w/o creating a temporary file
> >
> >
> >
>
> Are you looking for smth like:
>
> find . -type f -exec grep -e "a certain string" {} \; -exec mv {} tmp \;
>
> HTH
>
> Heinrich
>

Re: 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory

[Heinrich Götzger]

Matt,

Matt Wozniski wrote:
>> Are you looking for smth like:
>>
>> find . -type f -exec grep -e "a certain string" {} \; -exec mv {} tmp \;
>>
>> HTH
> 
> Heinrich's suggestion would move files both in the current directory
> and subdirectories that match your search string.  If you only want
> the current directory, you should be fine to use a
> 
> mv *somestring* tmp

this moves all files containig 'somestring' in it's filename, not in the
file itself, as I understood it and as it would in the former command.

But you are right, the find expressens prerequisite would be that it is
 not allowd to have 2 or more files matching the grep with the same name
in different directories in '.'. Otherwise you would sould only find a
subset of files in tmp

And tmp should not be a subdirectory of the directory you are searching
in it would break with an error for moving the same file to itself

> 
> ~Matt
> 
> PS - Sorry Heinrich, I accidentally sent this to you instead of the
> list at first.  My bad.  :)
don't worry, happend to me 10 Minutes ago as well :-)


cheers

Heinrich
> 
> On 10/31/06, Heinrich Götzger <goetzger@gmx.de> wrote:
>> zzapper wrote:
>> > Hi
>> > I want to 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a
>> sub-directory.
>> > Should be trivial but cant think how w/o creating a temporary file
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>> Are you looking for smth like:
>>
>> find . -type f -exec grep -e "a certain string" {} \; -exec mv {} tmp \;
>>
>> HTH
>>
>> Heinrich
>>

Re: 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory

[Jean-Rene David]

On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 12:59:15PM +0000, zzapper wrote:
> I want to 'mv' all files containing a certain
> string to a sub-directory.  Should be trivial
> but cant think how w/o creating a temporary file

For non-recursive behavior:

for file in *; do 
   grep -q "somestring" "$file" && mv "$file" "somedir"
done

Recursive behavior is more tricky, as mentioned
elsewhere in this thread.

-- 
JR

Re: 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory

[Peter Stephenson]

zzapper wrote:
> I want to 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory.
> Should be trivial but cant think how w/o creating a temporary file

mv *(.e:'grep -q string $REPLY':) subdir

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>                  Software Engineer
CSR PLC, Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road
Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070


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Re: 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory

[zzapper]

Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com> wrote in news:200610311419.k9VEJaKf009817
@news01.csr.com:

> zzapper wrote:
>> I want to 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory.
>> Should be trivial but cant think how w/o creating a temporary file
> 
> mv *(.e:'grep -q string $REPLY':) subdir
> 
Seeing PWS's reply reminded me of the conventional way to do this

mv $(grep -il "userid" *.php) done


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Re: 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory

[Nikolai Weibull]

On 10/31/06, zzapper <david@tvis.co.uk> wrote:
> Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com> wrote in news:200610311419.k9VEJaKf009817
> @news01.csr.com:
>
> > zzapper wrote:
> >> I want to 'mv' all files containing a certain string to a sub-directory.
> >> Should be trivial but cant think how w/o creating a temporary file
> >
> > mv *(.e:'grep -q string $REPLY':) subdir
> >
> Seeing PWS's reply reminded me of the conventional way to do this
>
> mv $(grep -il "userid" *.php) done

That doesn't work with files with spaces in them, though.

  nikolai