How to make multiple directories and move multiple files

Question

As an example, I have a directory with multiple files in this general format:

dir1/identifier1_desiredName1.m
dir1/identifier1_desiredName2
dir1/identifier1_desiredName3.m
dir1/identifier2_desiredName1.m
dir1/identifier2_desiredName2.m
dir1/identifier3_desiredName1.m
dir1/identifier3_desiredName2.m
dir1/identifier3_desiredName3
dir1/identifier4_desiredName1.m
dir1/identifier4_desiredName2.m
dir1/jabberwocky-mimsy-borogoves
dir1/other--should-not-be-moved

I'm trying to come up with a script that separates the files by the identifier by making a directory using that identifier, and then move files with the same identifier into that directory.

By the end of the moving, I would like to have something like:

dir1/identifier1/desiredName1.m
dir1/identifier1/desiredName2
dir1/identifier1/desiredName3.m
dir1/identifier2/desiredName1.m
dir1/identifier2/desiredName2.m
dir1/identifier3/desiredName1.m
dir1/identifier3/desiredName2.m
dir1/identifier3/desiredName3
dir1/identifier4/desiredName1.m
dir1/identifier4/desiredName2.m
dir1/jabberwocky-mimsy-borogoves
dir1/other--should-not-be-moved

As of right now, I think that I'm on the right track for the directory making:

awk _ {print $1} | uniq | mkdir

Syntax probably isn't quite correct, but the general idea is to print out the first column, separated by _, omitting repeats, and then piping those names into mkdir. But then I'm at a loss for moving the files into the directories. I was thinking about using grep similarly (replacing mkdir above and then piping into mv), but I wasn't sure if it would work.

Answer 1

you can list your files in list from ls > list for example
then use a loop-read of it to build sub-folders & then move the files dispatching them in the good one from its name as a pattern filter.

here I made a test from empty files touch filename to demonstrate method

bash-4.4$ while read
> do
> if [ ! -d ${REPLY/_*/} ]; then
>    mkdir ${REPLY/_*/}
> fi
> done < list

bash-4.4$ #here directories are made then use similar method for moving files
bash-4.4$ while read; do  if [ -f $REPLY ] ; then mv $REPLY ${REPLY/_*/}/${REPLY/*_/} ; fi ;  done < list
bash-4.4$ tree
.
├── identifier
│   └── desiredName.m
├── identifier1
│   ├── desirename1.m
│   └── desirename.m
├── identifier2
│   └── desirename2.m
└── list

3 directories, 5 files
bash-4.4$ 5~

You can do direct use in shell or use similar syntax in a script of course.

Answer 2

find . -type f -name '*_*.m' | while read FP
do
  FN="${FP##*/}"
  DN="${FP%/*}"
  ID="${FN%_*}"
  echo $FP "=>" $DN "/" $ID "/" $FN
  mkdir "$DN/$ID" 2>/dev/null
  mv "$FP" "$DN/$ID"
done