Question

I’m trying to do a bash script that will find & copy similar files to a destination directory.

For example, I’m passing a parameter 12300 to a script and I want to copy all files that start with 12300… to a new directory.

like this:

sh script.sh 12300

and here’s the script:

if [ -f /home/user/bashTest/$@*.jpg ]
then
    cp /home/user/bashTest/$@*.jpg /home/user/bashTest/final/
fi

This just doesn’t work. I have tried all kinds of solutions but nothing has worked.
The question is: How can I use wildcard with parameter?

Answer 1

When you’re checking for multiple files with -f or -e it can get nasty. I recommend kenfallon’s blog. This is something like what he would recommend:

#! /bin/bash

ls -l /home/user/bashTest/$1*.jpg > /dev/null
if [ "$?" = "0" ]
then
    cp /home/user/bashTest/$1*.jpg /home/user/bashTest/final/
fi

Not sure how the $@ would play in here, or if it’s required.