Question

I want to backup a folder and it’s contents by placing a copy of the folder and it’s contents into a folder in the same directory as the folder being backed up. As the folder is re-created in the backup directory I want to append the next number to the folder name.
For example:

MainDirectory Contents: FolderImportant FolderBackup FolderOthers

FolderImportant will never be a different name. FolderImportant and it’s contents need to be copied into FolderBackup and have the number 001 appended to the folder name (on the first backup), the contents to remain unchanged.

I have looked through the forum and found several examples of backup, and of renaming, but with the little I know about bash I am not sure how to put everything into an all-in-one script.

Answer 1

After a crash course in bash, I have a functional script. Please comment if there is something that can be done to improve this script as I am less than 6 hours into learning bash scripting.

#! /bin/bash

# The name of the folder the current backup will go into
backupFolderBaseName="ImportantFolder_"
# The number of the backup to be appended to the folder name
backupFolderNumber=0
# The destination the new backup folders will be placed in
destinationDirectory="/home/$LOGNAME/.hiddenFolder/projectFolder/backupFolder"
# The directory to be backed up by this script
sourceDirectory="/home/$LOGNAME/.hiddenFolder/projectFolder/ImportantFolder"

# backupDirectory()-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Update folder number and copy source directory to destination directory
backupDirectory() {
cp -r $sourceDirectory "$destinationDirectory/$backupFolderBaseName`printf "%03d" $backupFolderNumber`"
echo "Backup complete."
} #End backupDirectory()--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Script begins here------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if ! [ -d "$destinationDirectory" ];
then
    echo "Creating directory"
    mkdir "$destinationDirectory"
    if [ -d "$destinationDirectory" ];
    then
        echo "Backup directory created successfully, continuing backup process..."
        backupDirectory
    else
        echo "Failed to create directory"
    fi
else
echo "Existing backup directory found, continuing backup process..."
for currentFile in $destinationDirectory/*
    do
        tempNumber=$(echo $currentFile | tr -cd '[[:digit:]]' | sed -e 's/^0\{1,2\}//')
        if [ "$tempNumber" -gt "$backupFolderNumber" ];
        then
            backupFolderNumber=$tempNumber
        fi
    done
    let backupFolderNumber+=1
backupDirectory
fi #End Script here-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------