Question

I am trying to recurse into folders and then run commands on them, using bash script. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

If you want to recurse into directories, executing a command on each file found in those, I would use the find command, instead of writing anything using shell-script, I think.

That command can receive lots of parameters, like type to filter the types of files returned, or exec to execute a command on each result.

For instance, to find directories that are under the one I’m currently in :

find . -type d -exec echo "Hello, '{}'" \;

Which will get me somehthing like :

Hello, '.'
Hello, './.libs'
Hello, './include'
Hello, './autom4te.cache'
Hello, './build'
Hello, './modules'

Same to find the files under the current directory :

find . -type f -exec echo "Hello, '{}'" \;

which will get me something like this :

Hello, './config.guess'
Hello, './config.sub'
Hello, './.libs/memcache_session.o'
Hello, './.libs/memcache_standard_hash.o'
Hello, './.libs/memcache_consistent_hash.o'
Hello, './.libs/memcache.so'
Hello, './.libs/memcache.lai'
Hello, './.libs/memcache.o'
Hello, './.libs/memcache_queue.o'
Hello, './install-sh'
Hello, './config.h.in'
Hello, './php_memcache.h'
...

Some would say “it’s not shell”… But why re-invent the wheel ?

(And, in a way, it is shell ^^ )

For more informations, you can take a look at :

• man find
• lots of tutorials found with google, like, for instance, Unix Find Command Tutorial