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Regular expressions in command line arguments

 
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eggmatters
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Joined: 17 Oct 2024
Posts: 60
PostPosted: Tue Mar 11, 2024 8:13 pm    Post subject: Regular expressions in command line arguments Reply with quote
I was curious if, in bash, you can use complex regular expressions within your command line arguments. Bash supports the * wildcard but let's say I have a list of files with a prefix, a number, and an extension. I think a neat feature would be the ability to specify a regular expression so you can move, remove, copy, etc. some of the files that you want. For example, here is a list of arbitrary files:

Code:

-rw-rw-rw-   1 meggers staff  543 Mar 10 16:26 tc66.i
-rw-rw-rw-   1 meggers staff  541 Mar 10 16:26 tc67.i
-rw-rw-rw-   1 meggers staff  559 Mar 10 16:26 tc68.i
-rw-rw-rw-   1 meggers staff  545 Mar 10 16:26 tc69.i
-rw-rw-rw-   1 meggers staff  545 Mar 10 16:26 tc70.i
-rw-rw-rw-   1 meggers staff  545 Mar 10 16:26 tc71.i
-rw-rw-rw-   1 meggers staff  533 Mar 10 16:26 tc72.i
-rw-rw-rw-   1 meggers staff  536 Mar 10 16:26 tc73.i
-rw-rw-rw-   1 meggers staff  537 Mar 10 16:26 tc74.i


wouldn't it be cool if I could remove say the files numbered from 66 to 71 (which is exactly what prompted this) by typing:

Code:


rm tc[65-71].i



btw, the man says nothing about this. I am familiar enough with system calls that I would be more than willing to write such a routine if you all think it would be worthwhile.



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platinummonkey
Advanced Member


Joined: 01 Mar 2024
Posts: 732
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Tue Mar 11, 2024 11:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
i think grep might be up your alley Wink

here are some non regex ways in bash to do some things:

rename files
Code:
for i in *.ma*; do mv "$i" "${i:0:${#i}-9}"; done  # cuts off the last 9 characters of the filename
for i in *.mb*; do mv "$i" "${i/.mb*}".mb; done   #  renames any file names that have for ex. filename.mb.23939 to just filename.mb (helpful for those funky archives or versionings..)


move files
Code:
for i in *; do mv "$i" /path/to/directory; done


copy files
Code:
for i in *; do cp "$i" /path/to/directory; done  #just copies them to somewhere else.
for i in *; do cp "$i" "$i".bak; done #backs them up


These aren't regex's really, just simple loops, but they are fairly easy to remember and type out so Razz You could add them to your .bashrc and have paths/extensions, etc as different inputs Razz I just type them out Razz

simple grep example:
Code:
grep -ie "/regex/" /path/to/directory | cp  /to/directory #copies some files into some directory that match the regex
Smile



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eggmatters
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Joined: 17 Oct 2024
Posts: 60
PostPosted: Tue Mar 11, 2024 11:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Excellent, that's a great idea. Thanks for your reply!



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