using find with variables in bash

Question

I am new to bash scripting and need help:

I need to remove specific files from a directory . My goal is to find in each subdirectory a file called "filename.A" and remove all files that starts with "filename" with extension B, that is: "filename01.B" , "filename02.B" etc..

I tried:

B_folders="$(find /someparentdirectory -type d -name "*.B" | sed 's#  (.*\)/.*#\1#'|uniq)"
A_folders="$(find "$B_folders" -type f -name "*.A")"

for FILE in "$A_folders" ; do
   A="${file%.A}"
   find "$FILE" -name "$A*.B" -exec rm -f {}\;
done

Started to get problems when the directories name contained spaces.

Any suggestions for the right way to do it?

EDIT:

My goal is to find in each subdirectory (may have spaces in its name), files in the form: "filename.A"

if such files exists:

check if "filename*.B" exists And remove it, That is: remove: "filename01.B" , "filename02.B" etc..

chepner · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-20 12:38:06Z

2

In bash 4, it's simply

shopt -s globstar nullglob
for f in some_parent_directory/**/filename.A; do
    rm -f "${f%.A}"*.B
done

edited Sep 20, 2015 at 12:38

answered Sep 17, 2015 at 13:30

chepner

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4 Comments

Arie Over a year ago

it works, but in case there isn't a "filename*.B" it will try to remove it even though it doesn't exist. how can I avoid this?

chepner Over a year ago

I added the -f to suppress the error when the file does not exist.

Arie Over a year ago

If "some_parent_directory" is actually 2 or more directories path stored in a variable (output of a find command : folders="$(find /g -type d -name "jpegtest*")" , it wouldn't search all subdirectories of all the directories. what is missing?

chepner Over a year ago

Please open a new question for that.

Elisiano Petrini · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-17 13:26:48Z

If the space is the only issue you can modify the find inside the for as follows:

find "$FILE" -name "$A*.B" -print0 | xargs -0 rm

man find shows:

  -print0
          True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a null character (instead of the newline character that  -print  uses).   This  allows
          file  names that contain newlines or other types of white space to be correctly interpreted by programs that process the find output.  This option corre-
          sponds to the -0 option of xargs.

and xarg's manual

  -0     Input  items are terminated by a null character instead of by whitespace, and the quotes and backslash are not special (every character is taken literal-
          ly).  Disables the end of file string, which is treated like any other argument.  Useful when input items might contain  white  space,  quote  marks,  or
          backslashes.  The GNU find -print0 option produces input suitable for this mode.

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