asked on

Moving directories for archiving purposes

Hi experts!

I'm quite new to unix and its shell scripting. Anyway, I need to create an sh script that
moves directories and its file contents to the archive directory.

Example:

Before archive:

SourceFolder
Subfolder1
revAfolder
revBfolder
revCfolder
Subfolder2
revAfolder
revBfolder

ArchiveFolder

After archive:

SourceFolder
Subfolder1
revCfolder
Subfolder2
revBfolder

ArchiveFolder
Subfolder1
revAfolder
revBfolder
Subfolder2
revAfolder

Notice that after archiving, the directories for old revisions are moved to the
archive folder.

Hope anyone can help me with this. =D

yuzh

you can do:

cd /path-to/Subfolder1
mv Subfolder[12] /path-to/ArchiveFolder

man mv
to learn more details

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Gns

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Tintin

Here's a tested version

#!/bin/sh

SOURCEDIR=/path/to/source
ARCHIVEDIR=/path/to/archive

for dir in $SOURCEDIR/Subfolder*
do
for subdir in `ls -rd $dir/rev*|sed 1d`
do
[ -d $ARCHIVEDIR/$dir ] || mkdir $ARCHIVEDIR/$dir
mv $subdir $ARCHIVEDIR/$dir
done
done

jamoraquai

ASKER

Thanks for the quick response guys. will try these scripts out! =)

jamoraquai

ASKER

Hi Glen,

I thinks i should use the `ls -t` instead of `ls -rt` because I need to exclude the latest folder from being moved to
the archive folder. Am I correct? just a confirmation. I noticed that this block
if [ "x$M" == "x" ]
then
M="$j"
else
mv $j $ARCHIVE/$i
fi
is excluding the first folder from being moved or archived and when you use the `ls -rt` the first folder is the oldest folder.
therefore excluding the old folder from being archived instead of the latest being excluded.

Thanks!

Tintin

I thought you were going off the subdirs, alphabetically.

Anyhow, easy to change to date based:

#!/bin/sh

SOURCEDIR=/path/to/source
ARCHIVEDIR=/path/to/archive

for dir in $SOURCEDIR/Subfolder*
do
for subdir in `ls -rtd $dir/rev*|sed 1d`
do
[ -d $ARCHIVEDIR/$dir ] || mkdir $ARCHIVEDIR/$dir
mv $subdir $ARCHIVEDIR/$dir
done
done

jamoraquai

ASKER

Sorry for the change. anyway, I found out that there were different names for revision directories so i had to rely on the last modified field.
I'm currently testing Glenn's script and I'll try yours Tintin if Glenn's does not work. Thanks man!

Gns

> I thinks i should use the `ls -t` instead of `ls -rt` because I need to exclude the latest folder from being moved to
> the archive folder. Am I correct? just a confirmation. I noticed that this block
> if [ "x$M" == "x" ]
> then
> M="$j"
> else
> mv $j $ARCHIVE/$i
> fi
> is excluding the first folder from being moved or archived and when you use the `ls -rt` the first folder is the oldest
> folder.
> therefore excluding the old folder from being archived instead of the latest being excluded.
Do the ls with -lt and -lrt and you'll see if the way I do it is the right way to do it;-).On many many unices the ls -t will list from oldest to newest, so to have a safe way (that aren't susceptible to arbitrary limits) of excluding the first directory (and note that I go to some pains to ensure that it really is a directory)... Well, having said that, one can note that Solaris implementation of ls (of course) does it the other way around... So in that case you would have to remove the "r" as you suggest.

-- Glenn

Gns

Oh, and there is the complete difference between Tintins suggestion and mine... I'll only move directories (with arbitrary names), while his will move any file or directory named rev<something>... But that was perhaps obvious:-).

-- Glenn

jamoraquai

ASKER

Thanks Glenn for all the help! =D Appreciate it man. Thank you also Tintin!
Hope to hear from you guys again. Ciao!

Gns

> "On many many unices the ls -t "
On not so many... Must have been smoking something interresting there:-).

-- Glenn