How to move text files to parent folder

[PatrickMc]

Someone had asked a scripting question about how to move all .txt files to their respective parent folders. I can't post an answer there since when I click REPLY, it shows me a blank screen.

Anyway, here are the requirements.

Start with folder folder1, find files *.txt in the folder and subfolders, move all .txt files back one level up (into parent folder).

Here is the script.

var str list ; lf -rn "*.txt" "folder1" > $list
while ($list <> "")
do
    var str file ; lex "1" $list > $file
    # $file now has the full path of one file. Strip off the last instance of
    # /.../ . If that does not exist in full path, this file is at the top level.
    var str parent ; stex -r -p "]^/&/^" $file > $parent
    if ($parent=="")
        # There is no parent folder to copy this file to.
        echo $file " is already at the top-most level directory."
    else
        system move ("\""+$file+"\"") ("\""+$parent+"\"")
    endif
done

This script is in biterscripting ( http://www.biterscripting.com/install.html ) .


Patrick

[falko]

Originally Posted by PatrickMc

I can't post an answer there since when I click REPLY, it shows me a blank screen.

Hi Patrick,

can you tell me which browser and browser version you're using, and which OS? Does your browser accept cookies from HowtoForge?

[nicephotog]

Try this at the prompt and that is as much as required in basic to move multiple files and you will see that you need to organise how a script requires to runthrough folders for each folder.

This picks up all the .txt files present in the folder and moves them to the parent directory . In effect it is also setup for the prompt if you have CD'd into the directory first.
-b alike backup
-i prompt an overwrite
-v verbose

mv -biv *.txt ../

[PatrickMc]

nicephotog:

Thanks for your tip. But if you were to execute the mv command from the command prompt, you would have to do this folder by folder - first cd to a folder, then do mv. No ? (I guess the original poster was looking for a script to do all of that in just one command.)

falko:

Thanks for your consideration. Actually, it (the blank screen) is not happening here. I am able to post a reply here. So, I guess that was only a temporary phenomenon.

Patrick

[mdjzh]

I like the idea, cool!

[nicephotog]

Sorry , That was a bit short for the idea at it

# guess where ./ is I should have said "something like this" in the previous
# sorry i don't have a linux box with me for now 
# no qw
manillas=("./contfol1/fnum1" "./contfol2/fnum2" "./contfol3/fnum3")
#
mlen=${#manillas[@]}
#
for ((i=0;i<${mlen};i++)); # double brackets for numerics
do
mv -biv ${manillas[$i]}/*.txt ../
done