3

I have directory with the next structure:

example
├───1
│   └───01-01-2015.txt
├───2
│   └───02-02-2016.txt
├───3
│   └───03-03-2017.txt
└───script.sh

I'm trying to write a script which will find all .txt files and will create besides them a new folder with a name based on the name of .txt file in particular folder.

So result will be: 

example
├───1
│   ├───01-01-2015
│   └───01-01-2015.txt
├───2
│   ├───02-02-2016
│   └───02-02-2016.txt
├───3
│   ├───03-03-2017
│   └───03-03-2017.txt
└───script.sh

So in folder "3" subfolder "03-03-2017", in folder "2" subfolder "02-02-2016" etc.

I understand that find all .txt files is pretty simple but can't figure out how to combine it with creating directory and performing substring for every search result.

Thanks in advance!!

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5 
find example -name \*.txt | sed 's/\.txt$//' | xargs -n 1 mkdir

Warning: this requires that your paths do not contain newlines.

Edit: see terdon's comment if you are using GNU tools.

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2
  • 3
    You can make it safe for newlines if you're using GNU tools with find example -name \*.txt -print0 | sed -z 's/\.txt$//' | xargs -0 -n 1 mkdir Commented Jan 19, 2017 at 18:05
  • Thank you, I did not know the -z option to GNU sed. Commented Jan 19, 2017 at 18:09
4

I would just use a bash loop for this:

for i in **/*.txt; do mkdir "${i%.txt}"; done

If I run this on your example, I get:

$ tree
.
├── 1
│   └── 01-01-2015.txt
├── 2
│   └── 02-02-2016.txt
└── 3
    └── 03-03-2017.txt

3 directories, 3 files
$ shopt -s globstar
$ for i in **/*.txt; do mkdir "${i%.txt}"; done
terdon@oregano foo $ tree
.
├── 1
│   ├── 01-01-2015
│   └── 01-01-2015.txt
├── 2
│   ├── 02-02-2016
│   └── 02-02-2016.txt
└── 3
    ├── 03-03-2017
    └── 03-03-2017.txt

6 directories, 3 files

globstar is a bash option, explained in man bash:

globstar

If set, the pattern ** used in a pathname expansion context will match all files and zero or more directories and subdirectories. If the pattern is followed by a /, only directories and subdirectories match.

So, after enabling it with shopt -s globstar, the pattern **/*.txt will find all files (or dirs) whose name ends with .txt.

The ${i%.txt} is shell syntax to remove a substring. The general format is ${variable%string} and it will remove the first instance of string from the end of the variable. So, ${i%.txt}" will be the file name (including parent directories), minus the .txt. Therefore, [passing it to mkdir will create the directory you want.

Personally, I find the syntax above much simpler, but here's how to do it with find:

find . -name '*.txt' -exec sh -c 'mkdir ${0%.txt}' {} \;

Here, the -exec command {} will replace {} with each of the results of find and then run command on it. Since the command here is a call to sh -c, the sh will take the {} as its zeroeth positional parameter, $0. So, we then run the same shell substitution as explained above to create the directory.

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