Bash script to find and execute more complex command

Question

Ok, so I have a bunch of test_xx and validate_xx files that I want to execute in the following way:

./path/test_01 | ./server | ./path/validate_01

./path/test_02 | ./server | ./path/validate_02

... And so on.

Now then, I want to create a run_all script that will locate all of these other scripts and run them all in this way.

I can use the following code to find and execute only, for example, test_01:

find ./*/ -name test_01 -exec {} \;

So, I have two problems:

(Important!) How can I make bash execute the more complicated line above, with piping and two unknown directories to search for? I can only find how to execute a single command.
(Less important, but still an issue...) What would be the best way to loop this script, so that it executes all test/validate scripts in the directory, then stops? The scripts are currently named test_01, test_02, ..., test_26 (and similarly for validate_xx) - but I want to script to still work, without changing, if I add test_27 etc.

Try this one: find . -name "test_*" | xargs -i sh -c '{} | ./server | echo {} | sed 's/test_/validate_/' ' — Davide Berra
– Davide Berra, Commented Jan 7, 2013 at 10:40

Amadan · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-07 10:34:41Z

1

If they don't span multiple directories, you don't need to use find:

for test in path/test*; do $test | ./server | ${test/test/validate}; done

BTW, useful tidbit: ${a/b/c} syntax says: take value of variable a, and replace b with c.

If you do need find, then you can wrap redirection inside a shell script:

find dir -exec sh -c '... | ... | ...' \;

EDIT: in a bit more detail,

find . -name test\* -exec sh -c '
  test={}
  validate=${test/test/validate}
  $test | ./server | $validate
' \;

edited Jan 7, 2013 at 10:34

answered Jan 7, 2013 at 10:08

Amadan

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5 Comments

Tom Lord Over a year ago

Tests are stored in different folders, so I do need to use find -- sorry, I should have been clearer there. (However, each test_xx script is in the same folder as its corresponding validation_xx script -- so it's probably possible to use some shortcut here) The relevant bit of code now looks like this: (starting with i="1") find ./*/ -name test_0$i -exec sh -c '{} | ./server' ...Which works, so it seems I'm on the right track. But how to incorporate validate_01? Hmm...

Amadan Over a year ago

@TomLord: Okay, I believe this should do the trick. No need for an explicit loop, find itself is all the loop you need.

Tom Lord Over a year ago

Thank you!! The "EDIT" you added above works perfectly, and without the need for any indexing variables like I was attempting. I'll come back and upvote your response once I've been on this site long enough for it to allow me to, haha!

Josh Cartwright Over a year ago

Your use of find is broken here if any files contain whitespace or embedded semicolons. Also, the invocation is broken if the script exists in a directory with spaces. It should be: find . -name 'test*' -exec sh -c '"$1" | ./server | "${1/test/validate}"' _ {} ';'

Amadan Over a year ago

@JoshCartwright: In general case, yes. I was trusting the OP that his files were test_## and validate_##, which do not necessitate quotage. I guess that part of the answer was tailor-made for the question.

choroba · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-07 10:07:07Z

0

Use a for loop. For example, you can loop over the tests and extract the number from them via Parameter expansion:

for test in ./path/test_[0-9][0-9] ; do
    "$test" | ./server | ./path/validate_${test: -2}
done

answered Jan 7, 2013 at 10:07

choroba

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