Renaming and Moving Files in Bash or Perl - perl

Question

HI, I'm completely new to Bash and StackOverflow.
I need to move a set of files (all contained in the same folder) to a target folder where files with the same name could already exist.
In case a specific file exists, I need to rename the file before moving it, by appending for example an incremental integer to the file name.
The extensions should be preserved (in other words, that appended incremental integer should go before the extension). The file names could contain dots in the middle.
Originally, I was thinking about comparing the two folders to have a list of the existing files (I did this with "comm"), but then I got a bit stuck. I think I'm just trying to do things in the most complicated possible way.
Any hint to do this in the "bash way"? It's OK if it is done in a script other than bash script.

Answer 1

If you don't mind renaming the files that already exist, GNU mv has the --backup option:
mv --backup=numbered * /some/other/dir

Answer 2

Here is a Bash script:
source="/some/dir"
dest="/another/dir"
find "$source" -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf "%f\n" | while read -r file
do
suffix=
if [[ -a "$dest/$file" ]]
then
suffix=".new"
fi
# to make active, comment out the next line and uncomment the line below it
echo 'mv' "\"$source/$file\"" "\"$dest/$file$suffix\""
# mv "source/$file" "$dest/$file$suffix"
done
The suffix is added blindly. If you have files named like "foo.new" in both directories then the result will be one file named "foo.new" and the second named "foo.new.new" which might look silly, but is correct in that it doesn't overwrite the file. However, if the destination already contains "foo.new.new" (and "foo.new" is in both source and destination), then "foo.new.new" will be overwritten).
You can change the if above to a loop in order to deal with that situation. This version also preserves extensions:
source="/some/dir"
dest="/another/dir"
find "$source" -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf "%f\n" | while read -r file
do
suffix=
count=
ext=
base="${file%.*}"
if [[ $file =~ \. ]]
then
ext=".${file##*.}"
fi
while [[ -a "$dest/$base$suffix$count$ext" ]]
do
(( count+=1 ))
suffix="."
done
# to make active, comment out the next line and uncomment the line below it
echo 'mv' "\"$source/$file\"" "\"$dest/$file$suffix$count$ext\""
# mv "$source/$file" "$dest/$file$suffix$count$ext"
done

Answer 3

As per OP, this can be Perl, not just bash. Here we go
NEW SOLUTION: (paying attention to extension)
~/junk/a1$ ls
f1.txt f2.txt f3.txt z1 z2
~/junk/a1$ ls ../a2
f1.txt f2.1.txt f2.2.txt f2.3.txt f2.txt z1
# I split the one-liner into multiple lines for readability
$ perl5.8 -e
'{use strict; use warnings; use File::Copy; use File::Basename;
my #files = glob("*"); # assume current directory
foreach my $file (#files) {
my $file_base2 = basename($file);
my ($file_base, $ext) = ($file_base2 =~ /(.+?)([.][^.]+$)?$/);
my $new_file_base = "../a2/$file_base";
my $new_file = $new_file_base . $ext;
my $counter = 1;
while (-e $new_file) {
$new_file = "$new_file_base." . $counter++ . $ext;
}
copy($file, $new_file)
|| die "could not copy $file to $new_file: $!\n";
} }'
~/junk/a1> ls ../a2
f1.1.txt f1.txt f2.1.txt f2.2.txt f2.3.txt f2.4.txt f2.txt f3.txt
z1 z1.1 z2
OLD SOLUTION: (not paying attention to extension)
~/junk/a1$ ls
f1 f2 f3
~/junk/a1$ ls ../a2
f1 f2 f2.1 f2.2 f2.3
# I split the one-liner into multiple lines for readability
$ perl5.8 -e
'{use strict; use warnings; use File::Copy; use File::Basename;
my #files = glob("*"); # assume current directory
foreach my $file (#files) {
my $file_base = basename($file);
my $new_file_base = "../a2/$file_base";
my $new_file = $new_file_base;
my $counter = 1;
while (-e $new_file) { $new_file = "$new_file_base." . $counter++; }
copy($file,$new_file)
|| die "could not copy $file to $new_file: $!\n";
} }'
~/junk/a1> ls ../a2
f1 f1.1 f2 f2.1 f2.2 f2.3 f2.4 f3

Answer 4

I feel bad for posting this without testing it. However it is late and I have work in the morning. My attempt would look something like this:
## copy files from src to dst
## inserting ~XX into any name between base and extension
## where a name collision would occur
src="$1"
dst="$2"
case "$dst" in
/*) :;; # absolute dest is fine
*) dst=$(pwd)/$dst;; # relative needs to be fixed up
esac
cd "$src"
find . -type f | while read x; do
x=${x#./} # trim off the ./
t=$x; # initial target
d=$(dirname $x); # relative directory
b=$(basename $x); # initial basename
ext=${b%%.*}; # extension
b=${b##*.}; # basename with ext. stripped off
let zz=0; # initial numeric
while [ -e "$dst/$t" ]; do
# target exists, so try constructing a new target name
t="$d/$bb~$zz.$ext"
let zz+=1;
done
echo mv "./$x" "$dst/$t"
done
Overall the strategy is to get each name from the source path, break it into parts, and, for any collision, iterate over names of the form "base~XX.extension" until we find one that doesn't collide.
Obviously I have prepended the mv command with an echo because I'm a coward. Remove that at your own (files') peril.

Answer 5

If you dont need incremental suffix, rsync can do the job:
rsync --archive --backup --suffix=.sic src/ dst
Update:
find/sed/sort is used to manage versioned backup files:
#!/bin/bash
src="${1}"
dst="${2}"
if test ! -d "${src}" -o ! -d "${dst}" ;then
echo Usage: $0 SRC_DIR DST_DIR >&2
exit 1
fi
rsync --archive --backup "${src}/" "${dst}/"
new_name() {
local dst=$1
local prefix=$2
local suffix=$3
local max=$(find ${dst} -type f -regex ".*${prefix}.[0-9]*.${suffix}\$" \
| sed 's/.*\.\([0-9]*\)\..*/\1/'|sort -n|tail -n 1)
let max++
echo ${prefix}.${max}.${suffix}
}
# swap BACKUP-extension/real-extension
for backup_file in $(find $dst -name "*~"); do
file=${backup_file%~}
prefix=${file%.*}
suffix=${file##*.}
suffix=${suffix%\~}
mv ${backup_file} $(new_name $dst $prefix $suffix)
done