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mv *.jpg is complete bullshit. (self.linux)

submitted 9 months ago by mindbleach to c/linux

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'Well it's only passing mv a list of--' yeah yeah yeah, I know, and that's why I'm calling bullshit. It should be massively harder to execute filenames. Even if 1970s decisions make that the eternal hideous default: the lack of any idiot-proof standard workaround is incomprehensible.

StackOverflow's full of competing one-liners and people pointing out how each one is considered harmful. The least-skeezy options use exec. That sentence should make anyone recoil in horror.

This is not a filename problem. This is a tool problem. If a single printable character is going to silently expand into a list of names, then for god's sake, having it put each name in quotes should be fucking trivial.

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[–] FigMcLargeHuge 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

When I run into situations like this, I use the commands that work to write out a script. Eg, in your case the wildcard isn't working with the mv command, so do something like this:

ls -1 *.jpg | awk '{print "mv ""$1"" /mnt/example/Pictures"}' > /tmp/movefiles.sh

Then check the movefiles.sh and make sure it has all of the commands and files properly stated, make that executable, and then run that.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

ls | grep | mv would work, except the StackOverflow discussion also highlights how parsing ls can have the same issues.

I am moving thousands of files at once. If I have to check each one, it's still wrong.

The pragmatic answer turns out to be ./* instead of *.

[–] FigMcLargeHuge 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I saw that answer and was just offering another option. I am sure xargs might work, but you would need to test as you need a destination passed on each line. Back to my way, I have used it for a lot more than just the move command. I think I used it to do a chmod once where I wanted to check and make sure before I committed to actually running the command(s). You could also use find and the -exec option, which I think was also mentioned here.

Edit: also, you wouldn't need to check each one, just the first few and last few to make sure the syntax is correct. Maybe do a wc -l to make sure it's got the right number of entries and then let it run.