I was trying this command...am I going correct? other there is better way

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

I was trying to copy all debs from apt cache to some storage location and I was taking this approach...

/var/cache/apt/archives# ls -1 | grep -v jdownloader | fgrep .deb | xargs cp /media/eshant/L-STORE/Softwares/openjdk/

an error bla_bla.deb is a not directory stalled me

Suggestions please...

2

Do any of the file names have embedded blanks? That's my first guess as cause of problem.

ls | grep -v jdownloader | fgrep .deb | grep " "
3

You can try this pax :

cd /var/cache/apt/archives
pax -rw -s '/jdownloader*//' *.deb /media/eshant/L-STORE/Softwares/openjdk/
4

no there is none such pattern

5

That surprises me. :mad: The reason I suspected is as follows:

$ ls -1
xxx
yyy
zzz zzz

$ ls | grep " "
zzz zzz

$ ls -1 | xargs cp /tmp/
cp: target `zzz' is not a directory

Are you seeing same error message? What exact error message do you see?

Any chance other "funny" character (besides a blank) in the file names? Try something like:

ls | grep "[[:cntrl:]]"
6

Use below command :

cd to that directory ;

find . ! -name "*jdownloader*" -name "*.deb" -exec cp {} /media/eshant/L-STORE/Softwares/openjdk/ \;

Let me know if it works ..I am not sure why your command is not working. I also checked but facing same problem for your command. But try find command to get it done.

7

That will work.
It will also solve the primary problem: xargs appends arguments to the given one, while cp needs the given destination last.

8

As MadeInGermany pointed out, cp is failing because xargs calls it with multiple arguments and the final argument is not a directory.

Further, if the use of fgrep is intended to select files that end with a .deb extension, then it is incorrect. That fgrep will match filenames with a .deb embedded at any spot. The correct filter would be grep '\.deb$' , which anchors the pattern to the end of the name.

A minor nit: you don't need to use -1 with ls when writing to a pipe. ls detects the situation automatically.

One possible, portable approach:

ls | sed '/\.deb$/!d; /jdownloader/d' | pax -rw /media/eshant/L-STORE/Softwares/openjdk/

Regards,
Alister

9

You're right. It was a basic problem with the command line. xargs appends arguments. It should have been:

xargs -I FILE cp FILE /media/eshant/L-STORE/Softwares/openjdk/
10

Or, if it only needs to run on a GNU userland, cp -t dir ... .

Regards,
Alister