Sed: Difference between revisions

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{{Notice|Don't forget the <code>-i</code> option to make your file edit "in place"}}

== Move Nested Files to Flat Date Structure ==

Just like in the [[Organize music files]] article, you might need to organize your Photo files. Let's say you use [[Shotwell]] to organize your files on import, but inadvertently switch the structure of imported files from YYYY-MM-DD to YYYY/MM/DD Big difference. How do you quickly move hundreds of files from the latter to the former structure?

The following command will use <code>find</code> to find all '''files'''; ignoring any hidden files or files in hidden directories. Then sed just turns the results into a command that uses back-references to put things in the right place. Note that the command as shown doesn't actually do anything but print out the commands that we use <code>sed</code> to construct -- so you can refine it if it's not correct. By adding an '''e''' at the end like <code>%e'</code> in the final invocation, it instructs sed to execute those as commands.

find /home/greg/Pictures/2017/ -type f | grep --perl-regex -v '/\.' | sed 's%/home/greg/Pictures/2017/\([0-9][0-9]\)/\([0-9][0-9]\).*%mkdir -p "/home/greg/Pictures/2017-\1-\2" \&\& mv "&" "/home/greg/Pictures/2017-\1-\2/"%'

</syntaxhighlight>

When you're done with that, you'll have some detritus left over in your filesystem. <code>find /home/greg/Pictures/2017/ </code> will show you what's there, and adding the <code> -delete</code> option to find will delete those files.

== Resources ==

# Tutorial: http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html

# Another Cheatsheet: http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/SedChart.pdf

# Eric Pement's pages on sed: http://www.student.northpark.edu/pemente/sed/index.htm

== One-liners ==

<pre>

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[[Category:System Administration]]

[[Category:Bash]]

[[Category:Files]]

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+{{Notice|Don't forget the <code>-i</code> option to make your file edit "in place"}}
+== Move Nested Files to Flat Date Structure ==
+Just like in the [[Organize music files]] article, you might need to organize your Photo files.  Let's say you use [[Shotwell]] to organize your files on import, but inadvertently switch the structure of imported files from YYYY-MM-DD to YYYY/MM/DD  Big difference.  How do you quickly move hundreds of files from the latter to the former structure?
+The following command will use <code>find</code> to find all '''files'''; ignoring any hidden files or files in hidden directories. Then sed just turns the results into a command that uses back-references to put things in the right place.  Note that the command as shown doesn't actually do anything but print out the commands that we use <code>sed</code> to construct -- so you can refine it if it's not correct.  By adding an '''e''' at the end like <code>%e'</code> in the final invocation, it instructs sed to execute those as commands.
+<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
+find /home/greg/Pictures/2017/ -type f | grep --perl-regex -v '/\.' | sed 's%/home/greg/Pictures/2017/\([0-9][0-9]\)/\([0-9][0-9]\).*%mkdir -p "/home/greg/Pictures/2017-\1-\2" \&\& mv "&" "/home/greg/Pictures/2017-\1-\2/"%'
+</syntaxhighlight>
+When you're done with that, you'll have some detritus left over in your filesystem. <code>find /home/greg/Pictures/2017/ </code> will show you what's there, and adding the <code> -delete</code> option to find will delete those files.
 == Resources ==
 # Tutorial: http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html
 # Another Cheatsheet: http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/SedChart.pdf
+# Eric Pement's pages on sed: http://www.student.northpark.edu/pemente/sed/index.htm
 == One-liners ==
 <pre>
@@ Line 731: / Line 743: @@
 [[Category:System Administration]]
 [[Category:Bash]]
+[[Category:Files]]