BASH Variable changes value with combined with string value

Question

I'm trying to write a bash script that will look for all .txt files in a folder, grab the basename and then relocate the file. However, I'm having an issue where any time I try to combine the filename with a string, it outputs the "*.txt" wildcard from the for loop instead of the actual file it found. If I simply echo the variable, it outputs the expected filename.

I've included a simplified script below and the output it produces. I'm new to BASH and I assume this has something to do with the way it handles variables. I've been searching for an explanation for a few hours, but I haven't really come up with anything. Can anyone explain why the value changes when concatenated?

Here is the example code:

TEMP_PATH=C/Test

for testFile in $TEMP_PATH/*.txt; do
    testFileName=$(basename "$testFile")
    echo $testFileName
    echo "FileName:$testFileName"
done

Here is the example output from each echo

TestOne.txt
FileName:*.txt

Here are the files in the directory. TestingToo.sh is the script shown above

TestingToo.sh  TestOne.txt

Any help would be appreciated! Thank you.

I am unable to reproduce your results. When I run your script in described environment I got TestOne.txt FileName:TestOne.txt as expected — nsilent22
– nsilent22, Commented May 11, 2017 at 21:16
Hmm. I just tried copying my script exactly as I have it written here and ran it again. It still produces the same output for me. It would be strange, but I wonder if it's related to me running this on a windows system. I've tried with both git bash, and the windows 10 developer bash. Both produce the same results... — 99problemsMvcIsOne
– 99problemsMvcIsOne, Commented May 11, 2017 at 21:24
Are you sure you have some txt files under C/Test? If not, the string $TEMP_PATH/*.txt will not expand into list of files under C/Test. It will be taken "as is", so you will end up with variable testFile set to C/Test/*.txt. Next command will set testFileName to *.txt. Then, in the first echo command bash will substitute *.txt into set of matching files, that is: TestOne.txt in your current directory. But in the second echo comand there will be no file matching FileName:*.txt pattern. So bash will leave it as-is. — nsilent22
– nsilent22, Commented May 11, 2017 at 21:34
Yes, both the script and TestOne.txt are in C:\Test. The 3rd code block in the main post is output from an ls command while in /mnt/c/Test. So it seems to recognize that C:\Test and C/Test are the same location. I also tried explicitly using /mnt/c/Test for TEMP_PATH and it produces the same output. — 99problemsMvcIsOne
– 99problemsMvcIsOne, Commented May 11, 2017 at 21:49

Vladimir Varnakov · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-12 13:54:48Z

1

Try this

#!/usr/bin/env bash

TEMP_PATH=~/temp
TARGET_PATH=~/temp2

filenames=`find "$TEMP_PATH" -name "*.txt" `

if [ -z "$filenames" ] ; then echo "files not found" ; exit ; fi

for testFile in $filenames; do
    testFileName=$(basename "$testFile")
    echo $testFileName
    mv "${testFile}" "${TARGET_PATH}/${testFileName}"
done

answered May 12, 2017 at 13:54

Vladimir Varnakov

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