Pick all excel and pdf files for january and february from all departments?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1 
[root@localhost companyshare]# tree
.
├── CompanyShare
│   ├── Purchasing
│   │   ├── 01 - January
│   │   │   ├── Balance Sheet.xlsx
│   │   │   └── Invoice.pdf
│   │   ├── 02 - February
│   │   │   ├── additional-table.xlsx
│   │   │   ├── important-business-figures.xlsx
│   │   │   ├── important-invoice.pdf
│   │   │   └── not-important.mp4
│   │   └── 03 - March
│   │       └── numbers-from-march.xlsx
│   └── Sales
│       ├── 01 - January
│       │   └── Sales-January.xlsx
│       ├── 02 - February
│       │   └── Balance-Sheet-February.pdf
│       └── 03 - March
│           ├── Additional-Invoice-March.pdf
│           └── Sales-March.xlsx
└── __MACOSX
    └── CompanyShare
        ├── Purchasing
        │   ├── 01 - January
        │   ├── 02 - February
        │   └── 03 - March
        └── Sales
            ├── 01 - January
            ├── 02 - February
            └── 03 - March

19 directories, 11 files

How do I do this using globbing. I am attempting this and will put my valid attempts at the thread.

2

@Ihattaren , show your attempts, you know this forum is a collaboration, we're not here to do your work for you without any input from you.

1 Like
3

Try multiple wildcards like
echo */*/*/02" - "*/*.xls*
In bash you can use brace expansion, like
{*.xls*,*.pdf}

1 Like
4

I'm sure you're aware that an asterix expands to match anything, however you can match specific things using brace expansion eg

$ echo  Hello\ {Skrynesaver,Ihattaren}
Hello Skrynesaver Hello Ihattaren

You should be able to extrapolate a suitable shell expansion for that to meet your needs.

For more details on the MANY ways you can modify values with Bash expansions, take a look at the Bash Reference Manual

5 

[root@localhost companyshare]# echo CompanyShare/*/*/*.pdf
CompanyShare/Purchasing/01 - January/Invoice.pdf CompanyShare/Purchasing/02 - February/important-invoice.pdf CompanyShare/Sales/02 - February/Balance-Sheet-February.pdf CompanyShare/Sales/03 - March/Additional-Invoice-March.pdf

I got upto here.

6

what is that term

{*.xls*,*.pdf}

called in bash? Brace expansion? That helped me get the solution here's it.

echo CompanyShare/*/*/{*.xls*,*.pdf}

Plus I needed to enable

 shopt -s globstar

May I ask why does * instead of companyshare doesn't work?

echo  */*/{*.xls*,*.pdf}
7

Alas, this wont match what you say you're after (.pdf,.xls*) files from January and February
if you posted the accompanying output from the command you would see that.

8

echo */*/*/{*.xls*,*.pdf}
Each * expands to one directory level.
Option globstar? It expands ** over directories like
echo **/{*.xls*,*.pdf}
where the ** is the whole directory tree.
In any case a shopt -s nullglob is useful, because it does not show an empty match as the wildcard.

In the thread title you have a further requirement January+February.

echo  */*/{01,02}*/{*.xls*,*.pdf}

More efficient should be a [ ] character set:

echo  */*/0[12]*/{*.xls*,*.pdf}