bash find exec cp parents in script

Question

I am trying to run this command

for c in ax
do
mkdir $TgtDir$c/$Date
cd $TgtDir$c/$DirNew
DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
echo $DIR
echo find . -iname $tgt -exec cp --parents {} ../$Date \;
find . -iname $tgt -exec cp --parents {} ../$Date \;
done

it prints

/home/ax/new
find . -iname '*20170829*' -exec cp --parents {} ../20170829 ;

but doesnt copy anything. If I run the command that is echoed here (after adding the \ at the end, seems like echo is swallowing that as an escape) from the new directory, it works fine - and the files get copied into /home/ax/20170829/....

Any ideas what I am missing here?

Answer 1

I guess you're not really in the directory DIR; you execute cd in a subshell, but the working directory for the remaining commands stays at $TgtDir$c/$DirNew. You can verify this by calling pwd after echo $DIR.

Solution: Call cd directly, don't use a subshell or assign the result to a variable. Add the absolute target path to the copy command.

for c in ax
do
    mkdir $TgtDir$c/$Date

    DIR=$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )
    cd "${DIR}"
    pwd

    find . -iname $tgt -exec cp --parents {} $TgtDir$c/$Date \;
done

Alternative: Use the source directory instead of "." in the find command.

for c in ax
do
    mkdir $TgtDir$c/$Date
    cd $TgtDir$c/$DirNew

    DIR=$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )
    find "${DIR}" -iname $tgt -exec cp --parents {} ../$Date \;
done

Note: The code is not tested.