Bash script to find specific files in a hierarchy of files

Question

I have a folder in which there are many many folder and in each of these I have lots and lots of files. I have no idea which folder each files might be located in. I will periodically receive a list of files I need to copy to a predefined destination.

The script will run on a Unix machine.

So, my little script should:

read received list
find all files in the list
copy each file to a predefined destination via SCP

step 1 and 3, I think I'll manage on my own, but how will I do step 2?

I was thinking about using "find" to locate each file and when found, write the location in a string array. When all files are found I loop through the string array, running the "SCP" command for each file-location.

I think this should work, but I've never written a bash script before so could anyone help me a little to get started? I just need a basic "find" command which finds a filename and returns the file location if the file is found.

William Pursell · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-25 12:58:34Z

2

find $dir -name $name -exec scp {} $destination \;

answered Nov 25, 2011 at 12:58

William Pursell

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3 Comments

Linora Over a year ago

Hi, as I said in my first post, I've never written a bash script before. So while your suggestion might work, I'd like to know what it does.. could you describe what it does exactly? :)

William Pursell Over a year ago

It finds all files in and below the directory $dir and executes the scp command with the relative path of the file as the first argument and the contents of $destination as the second argument.

Linora Over a year ago

ah.. so I solves both my step 2 and 3 in one? nice.. I'll give it a shot :)

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