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Renaming Multiple Folders on Server

I hope that this is the right place to post this question

I have 5 folders named 1 2 3 4 and 5

Once every 12 hours I would like to rotate the folder names. 1 would become 2, 2 would become 3, 5 would become 1, etc.

Is there a way to do this using cron?

How would I do it?

timshank

Asked: 2004-08-20

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Apache Web Server

1 Solution

LVL 48

hernst42Commented: 2004-08-20

Yes this can be done via cron

my crontab -l :
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall.
# (/tmp/crontab.19956 installed on Fri Aug 20 21:57:23 2004)
# (Cron version -- $Id: crontab.c,v 2.13 1994/01/17 03:20:37 vixie Exp $)
* * * * * export MPATH=/your/path/where/the/dirs/are; mv $MPATH/5 $MPATH/t; for i in 4 3 2 1; do mv $MPATH/$i $MPATH/$(( i + 1 )); done; mv $MPATH/t $MPATH/1

to edit your contab use

crontab -e

LVL 51

ahoffmannCommented: 2004-08-20

# add to crontab
0 0,12 * * * /bin/awk 'BEGIN{for(i=5;i>0;i--){print "mv "i" "i+1}print "mv 6 1"}'|/bin/sh

timshankAuthor Commented: 2004-08-21

hernst42,

I keep getting the error

mv: can't stat source /public_html/zdetcom/includes/6
mv: can't stat source /public_html/zdetcom/includes/5
mv: can't stat source /public_html/zdetcom/includes/4
mv: can't stat source /public_html/zdetcom/includes/3
mv: can't stat source /public_html/zdetcom/includes/2
mv: can't stat source /public_html/zdetcom/includes/1
mv: can't stat source /public_html/zdetcom/includes/t

What can I do to correct that? Thanks

timshankAuthor Commented: 2004-08-21

ahoffmann,

where in your line of code do I put the path to my directory? the path being public_html/zdetcom/includes/

Thanks

LVL 51

ahoffmannCommented: 2004-08-22

0 0,12 * * * cd /public_html/zdetcom/includes/ && /bin/awk 'BEGIN{for(i=5;i>0;i--){print "mv "i" "i+1}print "mv 6 1"}'|/bin/sh

LVL 48

hernst42Commented: 2004-08-22

Is /public_html/zdetcom/includes/ the absolute path where the files are stored on the server or is that path relative to your home-directory, maybe the path must be more something like:
/home/timshank/public_html/zdetcom/includes/

you can get that path if you make ca cd to that includes directory and then do a
# pwd
The output of that command is the path you have to use.

LVL 51

ahoffmannCommented: 2004-08-22

aha, path guessing was part of the question ...

timshankAuthor Commented: 2004-08-22

Actually I tried both yours and hernst42s response.

I ended up with an additional error with yours so I awarded the points to hernst42.

/bin/sh: line 1: 0: command not found

Sorry. I appreciate the help but I can only accept one comment as the answer.

LVL 51

ahoffmannCommented: 2004-08-22

thanks for explanation.
It's ok to grade the working solution ;-)

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