Bash loop through multiple directories

Question

I do not know if this topic was reached or not bot couldn't find anything related.

I have a bash script and I want to do a for loop through multiple directories with the mention that I want to output in a log file only *.txt/files but the loop to don't go on sub-directories.

My desire is to use the directories in variables. I am using an array where I wrote the directories I search for them. When the script is ran the output is what is in array, not what is in the directories...

This is how my code look now, what should I do?:

#!/bin/bash

l=/home/Files/Test1/
j=/home/Files/Test2/
k=/home/Files/Test3/

arr=("$l" "$j" "$k")

for i in "${arr[*]}"
do
  echo "$i"  >> test
done

Thank you for any help!

I want to do a for loop through multiple directories You say that, yet I think you meant that you want to loop through files in multiple directories, not through directories. — KamilCuk
– KamilCuk, Commented Aug 7, 2020 at 11:17

KamilCuk · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-07 12:30:56Z

2

Just find the actual files.

find "${arr[@]}" -maxdepth 1 -type f >> test

You could depend on shell filename expansion:

for dir in "${arr[@]}" # properly handle spaces in array values
do
      for file in "$dir"/*; do
          # check for empty dir
          if [ -f "$file" ]; then
              # Use printf, in case file is named ex. `-e`
              printf "%s\n" "$file"
          fi
      done
# don't reopen the file on each loop, just open it once
done >> test

but that's a lot more, just find it.

edited Aug 7, 2020 at 12:30

answered Aug 7, 2020 at 11:23

KamilCuk

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