Copying nested folders

NickNoxx · External Since: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 5

Hi

I have a number of folders containing various formats of music. I'd like
to be able to copy all the folders containing a file with .mp3 extension
to an appropriately nested folder in another location ie

/music/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
should be copied to
/mp3/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3

whereas

music\Compilations\The Album\1-01 Clint Eastwood.wav
would be left alone

I'm thinking along the lines of:

find /music | grep mp3 |cp $ /mp3

but don't have the scripting skills to get it to work. Can anyone help
please?

Thanks

John Taylor · External Since: Nov 09, 2006 Posts: 46

NickNoxx wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have a number of folders containing various formats of music. I'd like
> to be able to copy all the folders containing a file with .mp3 extension
> to an appropriately nested folder in another location ie
>
> /music/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
> should be copied to
> /mp3/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
>
> whereas
>
> music\Compilations\The Album\1-01 Clint Eastwood.wav
> would be left alone
>
> I'm thinking along the lines of:
>
> find /music | grep mp3 |cp $ /mp3
>

How about:
find ./music -name "*.mp3" | cpio -pudv /mp3

Regards
JohnT

NickNoxx · External Since: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 5

John Taylor wrote:
> NickNoxx wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> I have a number of folders containing various formats of music. I'd
>> like to be able to copy all the folders containing a file with .mp3
>> extension to an appropriately nested folder in another location ie
>>
>> /music/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
>> should be copied to
>> /mp3/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
>>
>> whereas
>>
>> music\Compilations\The Album\1-01 Clint Eastwood.wav
>> would be left alone
>>
>> I'm thinking along the lines of:
>>
>> find /music | grep mp3 |cp $ /mp3
>>
>
> How about:
> find ./music -name "*.mp3" | cpio -pudv /mp3
>
> Regards
> JohnT

Would that create the necessary folders, in this case 'Compilations' and
'Rebel Music' if they didn't exist?

John Taylor · External Since: Nov 09, 2006 Posts: 46

NickNoxx wrote:
> John Taylor wrote:
>> NickNoxx wrote:
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> I have a number of folders containing various formats of music. I'd
>>> like to be able to copy all the folders containing a file with .mp3
>>> extension to an appropriately nested folder in another location ie
>>>
>>> /music/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
>>> should be copied to
>>> /mp3/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
>>>
>>> whereas
>>>
>>> music\Compilations\The Album\1-01 Clint Eastwood.wav
>>> would be left alone
>>>
>>> I'm thinking along the lines of:
>>>
>>> find /music | grep mp3 |cp $ /mp3
>>>
>>
>> How about:
>> find ./music -name "*.mp3" | cpio -pudv /mp3
>>
>> Regards
>> JohnT
>
> Would that create the necessary folders, in this case 'Compilations' and
> 'Rebel Music' if they didn't exist?
>

Yes.
p option tells cpio to copy the files
u tells it to copy unconditionally, so will replace any existing files
d tells it to create directories
v is verbose, so you can see what it is doing

NickNoxx · External Since: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 5

John Taylor wrote:

>
> Yes.
> p option tells cpio to copy the files
> u tells it to copy unconditionally, so will replace any existing files
> d tells it to create directories
> v is verbose, so you can see what it is doing

Thanks very much

Rikishi 42 · External Since: Oct 27, 2005 Posts: 177

On 2007-07-10, John Taylor <john RemoveThis @example.com> wrote:

>>> find ./music -name "*.mp3" | cpio -pudv /mp3

>> Would that create the necessary folders, in this case 'Compilations' and
>> 'Rebel Music' if they didn't exist?

> p option tells cpio to copy the files
> u tells it to copy unconditionally, so will replace any existing files
> d tells it to create directories
> v is verbose, so you can see what it is doing

Thank you for teaching me something. Smile

--
There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying.
The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Douglas Adams

Nix · External Since: Jul 29, 2004 Posts: 680

On 10 Jul 2007, Rikishi told this:

> On 2007-07-10, John Taylor <john DeleteThis @example.com> wrote:
>
>>>> find ./music -name "*.mp3" | cpio -pudv /mp3
>
>>> Would that create the necessary folders, in this case 'Compilations' and
>>> 'Rebel Music' if they didn't exist?
>
>> p option tells cpio to copy the files
>> u tells it to copy unconditionally, so will replace any existing files
>> d tells it to create directories
>> v is verbose, so you can see what it is doing
>
> Thank you for teaching me something. Smile

Tell you what's unusual: finding anyone using cpio for anything at all.

This sort of thing is what it's good at: anything with filenames on
stdin is much more neatly handled with cpio than with `xargs tar'.

--
`... in the sense that dragons logically follow evolution so they would
be able to wield metal.' --- Kenneth Eng's colourless green ideas sleep
furiously

Paul Martin · External Since: Sep 21, 2004 Posts: 173

This message is not archived

NickNoxx · External Since: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 5

Paul Martin wrote:
> In article <REMki.6729$oa7.6134@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net>,
> John Taylor wrote:
>> NickNoxx wrote:
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> I have a number of folders containing various formats of music. I'd like
>>> to be able to copy all the folders containing a file with .mp3 extension
>>> to an appropriately nested folder in another location ie
>>>
>>> /music/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
>>> should be copied to
>>> /mp3/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
>>>
>>> whereas
>>>
>>> music\Compilations\The Album\1-01 Clint Eastwood.wav
>>> would be left alone
>>>
>>> I'm thinking along the lines of:
>>>
>>> find /music | grep mp3 |cp $ /mp3
>>>
>
>> How about:
>> find ./music -name "*.mp3" | cpio -pudv /mp3
>
> A little refinement:
>
> find ./music -name "*.mp3" -print0 | cpio -0pudv /mp3
>
> If you want to save disc space, and the files are on the same physical
> drive, and you're not going to be modifying them, you could use hard
> links instead.
>
> find ./music -name "*.mp3" -print0 | cpio -0lpudv /mp3
>
You'll have to explain what the refinement does as I'm afraid I don't
understand. The files will end up on different filesystems (that's kind
of the point Smile

)

The 'basic' version worked a treat by the way.

For general information, I'm building an mp3 jukebox from a rugged hard
drive, an NSLU2 running mt-daapd, and (hopefully) a netgear MP101 for
use outside my camper van.

Ben Bacarisse · External Since: Jun 10, 2005 Posts: 90

NickNoxx <nick DeleteThis @munged_for_spam.com> writes:

> Paul Martin wrote:
>> In article <REMki.6729$oa7.6134@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net>,
>> John Taylor wrote:
>>> NickNoxx wrote:
>>>> Hi
>>>>
>>>> I have a number of folders containing various formats of
>>>> music. I'd like to be able to copy all the folders containing a
>>>> file with .mp3 extension to an appropriately nested folder in
>>>> another location ie
>>>>
>>>> /music/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
>>>> should be copied to
>>>> /mp3/Compilations/Rebel Music/04 The Russians Are Coming.mp3
>>>>
>>>> whereas
>>>>
>>>> music\Compilations\The Album\1-01 Clint Eastwood.wav
>>>> would be left alone
>>>>
>>>> I'm thinking along the lines of:
>>>>
>>>> find /music | grep mp3 |cp $ /mp3
>>>>
>>
>>> How about:
>>> find ./music -name "*.mp3" | cpio -pudv /mp3
>>
>> A little refinement:
>>
>> find ./music -name "*.mp3" -print0 | cpio -0pudv /mp3
>>
>> If you want to save disc space, and the files are on the same physical
>> drive, and you're not going to be modifying them, you could use hard
>> links instead.
>>
>> find ./music -name "*.mp3" -print0 | cpio -0lpudv /mp3
>>
> You'll have to explain what the refinement does as I'm afraid I don't
> understand.

Refinement 1: (-print0 in find and -0 in cpio) uses a zero byte rather
than newline to delimit entries. It is odd and disruptive but valid
to have a newline in a Linux file name.

Refinement 2: (-l in cpio) makes cpio link to the files rather than
copy them. Useful if you want to "pull out" a subset of files for
later action.

> The files will end up on different filesystems (that's
> kind of the point Smile

)

OK, then the -l will not work (actually, it will simply have no effect
since hard linking across filesystems is not possible and the -l flag
is a "link is possible" flag).

--
Ben.

NickNoxx · External Since: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 5

Ben Bacarisse wrote:
> snip explanation

Thanks