Check for related file names and delete one of them

Question

I need to write a script that will find files that contain a string in their name. If a file exists that is the same name but without that string, I want to remove the original file.

For example, if I am in a directory with the following files:

algomb
gomba
alb
algomba
alba

If the substring is gom then I would consider algomb, gomba, and algomba. Removing gom from each of those names I would check for the existance of alb, ba, and alba. Of those, alb and alba do exist, so I would remove algomb and algomba leaving just

alb
alba
gomba

in the directory when I'm done.

Here is what I tried:

#!/bin/bash
sz="gom"

talal=`find . -type f -name "*$sz*" -exec basename {} \;`
ossz=`find . -type f -exec basename {} \;`
c=`echo ${talal%%:*}${talal##*:}`

for c in ossz; do       
    if [ ! -d ]; then
        echo "This is a directory"  
    else    
        if [ -f ];
        then
            find .-type f -name "*$sz*" -exec basename {} \;  
        else
            echo ${talal%%:*}${talal##*:} 
        fi  
    fi
done

So this is works. This echo ${talal%%:*}${talal##*:} is give back the filename without "gom". But I can't compare these values with find . -type f -exec basename {} \; results.

Given that I can find the substrings, how can I test for the files and remove the appropriate ones?

Answer 1

The following should do what you're asking:

#!/bin/bash
sz="gom"
dir="/where/the/files/are"

find $dir -type f -name "*${sz}*" -print0 | while read -d '' -r c; do
    if [[ -f "$(echo $c | sed 's/'"${sz}"'//g')" ]]; then
        # Strip the 'echo' to have this actually do things
        echo rm -v "$c"
    fi
done

Some notes on the changes and fixes:

• Find's -printf "%f\n" is preferable to -exec basename {} \;. In this case I've removed find stripping the dirname so that the script is safe for non-flat directory structures.
• for c in ossz shouldn't have ever worked - the barename ossz isn't a variable. $ossz would've been needed.
• Using sed is probably preferable to relying upon bash pattern matching and substitution for readability reasons.

Example:

For a directory containing the following files:

alb  alba  algomb  algomba  gomb

The script from above will output the following:

rm -v ./algomb
rm -v ./algomba