Question

I try to find files in a directory and copy them to somewhere else, this is my script:

#!/bin/bash
# fileSearch

array=(a b c d)

for var in array
do
        find ~/ -name $var* -exec cp {} ./test/ \;
done

What am i doing wrong? He won’t find any files…
I think it probably will be something with quotes.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks

Answer 1

Try this:

#!/bin/bash
# fileSearch

array=(a b c d)

for var in array
do
    echo $var
done

Output:

array

In other words, you’re just looping through a word-list which contains a single word “array”. The correct version should expand the array, and add a $-symbol (meaning to reference the variable):

#!/bin/bash
# fileSearch

array=(a b c d)

for var in ${array[@]}
do
    find ~/ -name "$var*" -exec cp {} ./test/ \;
done

Also it’s a good habit to quote your variables, i.e., whenever you use a variable like $var, use "$var" instead. This prevents many problems for when your variables contain strings with spaces (or other “strange” symbols) that should be treated as a single string.