parsing ls -R output into a variable in Unix

Question

I am executing a ls-R /files/

I got the following output

./:    nvision
./nvision:    layout
./nvision/layout:    abcd.txt

I am looking to get path in the listing like

/nvision
/nvision/layout/
/nvision/layout/abcd.txt

and I should be able to copy the required path to a variable

ps: I am not searching for nvision I am trying to get the list of folders and files under files folder

can any one help me with that

use find, ls should essentially never be used in scripts, its output is meant for humans. — Mat
– Mat, Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 11:11
i tried with find, I was not able to get it working in my scripts, @Mat, can you please help me with the command, when ever I try Find command in the console I get the following error "Parameter format not correct" — gmhk
– gmhk, Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 11:13
so what happens when you have more than 1 file in the folder what would you like to do then ? since on ls -R output you have /folder: file1 file2 file3 and so on — V H
– V H, Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 11:19

redent84 · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-26 12:30:55Z

4

Have you tried using find (see reference)

It would be as easy as find . to get the list of files and folders inside the current directory. Change the . to any path to obtain the list of files and directories inside that path:

nvision
nvision/abcd.txt
nvision/layout

To save it to a variable

var=`find .`

And to add the initial slash to every line (if required)

var=`find . -exec echo /{} \;`

Here var has no special meaning, it's just the variable name.

To later use the variable you can use $var or ${var}. For example, to print it or save it to file:

# Print the variable content
echo $var

# Save the content of var to a file
echo $var > /tmp/file.txt

edited Feb 26, 2013 at 12:30

answered Feb 26, 2013 at 11:12

redent84

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2 Comments

Olaf Dietsche Over a year ago

If you have GNU find available, you can use -printf instead of -exec echo. This saves starting a process for every file found.

gmhk Over a year ago

I got that find.exe was not properly configured and it was picking the windows find.exe and it was failing now find command is wokring perfectly fine

t6d · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-26 11:22:27Z

You should really use find for these kind of things. Simply use find directory. If you require more specific output formatting you can make use of find's -printf option. Find is a really powerful tool that also allows all kinds of filtering. Make sure you check the documentation for more information: GNU FindUtils.

To store the results in a variable use one of the following statements:

result=`find ...`

or

result=$(find ...)

You can also use find to directly execute a command for each match using find's -exec option. Again, make sure to check out the documentation. It's really comprehensive.

Update (Mac / UNIX users – Linux users are not affected)

BSD find requires a path. Use

find .

instead of just

find

if you require a listing of all files in your working directory.

V H · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-26 12:05:44Z

1

well the answer is all over this page you should be using find which lists all files found yo can define

where . is current folder otherwise replace . with path you are wishing to search

find .-type d -print

which lists directories only or find

or

find . -type f -print

which will list all files only

if you are looking for both then

find . -print

and if you only wish to define recursive level try

find . -maxdepth 1 -print

and here is a script

#!/bin/bash
for names in $(find . -type f -print); do
    echo $names
done

answered Feb 26, 2013 at 12:05

V H

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