Find command + replace the extension (.xxx) by *

UNIX for Beginners Q & A
1

Hello,

I'm on HP Unix and in a Job, I tried to extract all files from a folder, and replace the extension (.xxxx) by '*' , remove duplicates and move the result in a file..

Example :
Folder has : ABC, CCC.txt, CCC.sf, CCC.sfd, DDD

I need to generate and output file with :

    ABC*
    CCC*
    DDD*

the commands that I did (See below) is working, but it increased the size of the logs because in my folder it has more than 600 000 files.. Is I can used another command to doing it or do an echo off somewhere and echo on after the execution.. thanks

[ -f $MAITUT/temp_file_A ] && rm $MAITUT/temp_file_A
[ -f $MAITUT/BCK_TMP_FILES_TO_DELETE ] && rm $MAITUT/BCK_DATA_FILES_TO_DELETE


find * -type f -mtime -365 | while read FileName
do
echo ${FileName%.*}'*' >> $MAITUT/temp_file_A
done

# Remove duplicates

sort -u $MAITUT/temp_file_A > $MAITUT/BCK_DATA_FILES_TO_DELETE

Example of the Info that i have in the logs :

...

+ read FileName
+ echo ARCAEDF*
+ 1>> /umaitdevapp/home/maitdev/tmp/temp_file_A
+ read FileName
+ echo ARCAMF*
+ 1>> /umaitdevapp/home/maitdev/tmp/temp_file_A
+ read FileName
+ echo ARCAMF*
+ 1>> /umaitdevapp/home/maitdev/tmp/temp_file_A
+ read FileName
+ echo ARCCC*
+ 1>> /umaitdevapp/home/maitdev/tmp/temp_file_A
+ read FileName
+ echo ARCCC*
+ 1>> /umaitdevapp/home/maitdev/tmp/temp_file_A
+ read FileName
+ echo ARCCD*
+ 1>> /umaitdevapp/home/maitdev/tmp/temp_file_A
+ read FileName
+ echo ARCCD*
+ 1>> /umaitdevapp/home/maitdev/tmp/temp_file_A
+ read FileName

...

Thanks a lot
Alain

2

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1 Like
3

Someone left a set -x in your script by accident, causing it print every line of execution to stderr. Remove the set -x and it will stop doing that.

4

... or the script is run with "sh -x"; the -x option also turns on the debug mode.

The following will run faster, and log less in debug mode

find * -type f -mtime -365 |
# replace a trailing .xxx with *
  sed 's/[.][^.]*$//' |
# Remove duplicates
  sort -u > $MAITUT/BCK_DATA_FILES_TO_DELETE

The pipe passes the output to the next command without a temp file.

1 Like
5

The request seems to be to add a .* to every single file name, have it an extension or not. Try this small adaption to MadeInGermany's proposal:

find * -type f -mtime -365 | sed 's/[.][^.]*$//; s/$/.*/' | sort -u
1 Like
6

Many thank to all of you, I used both and run very well & fast..

set +x
 find * -type f -mtime -365 | sed 's/[.][^.]*$//; s/$/*/' | sort -u > $MAITUT/FILES_TO_DELETE
7

My previous post missed the replacement * in sed 's/[.][^.]*$/*/' .
But still this is different from the original while loop: it does not add the * when there is no .xxxx extension.

BTW your last post has ICODE tags instead of Code tags. The latter work much better for multi-line code blocks.