Copy images in bash without changing subfolders

Question

Can I copy *.png files without change subfolders address and name?

Example: Copy /photo to /pic converting /photo/2017/hello.png to /pic/2017/hello.png.

It should be something like this: mkdir -p pic/2017/ && cp photo/2017/*.png pic/2017/. — velix, Jun 13 '18 at 20:48
What files and directories are you referring to? Please edit your question to better explain the main folder hierarchy. — velix, Jun 13 '18 at 23:54
@ArkadiuszDrabczyk I’m curius: How can rsync make the task easier as compared to cp? Please add an answer! — dessert, Jun 14 '18 at 20:25
@dessert I'd prefer rsync over cp for copying large amounts of data even locally because if it stopped it will only copy files that have not been copied yet the next time it's started. Also, I have bad experience with other tools, for example a few years ago I tried to use scp to copy a few gigabytes of data over ssh and it crashed but rsync did the job. — Arkadiusz Drabczyk, Jun 14 '18 at 21:42

dessert · Answer 1 · 2018-06-13T21:32:54.567

1

First create the directory you want to copy to:

mkdir -p pic/2017

Then copy over the files. Normally one would just need cp:

cp photo/2017/*.png pic/2017/

As you mentioned there are too many files and you probably receive an “Argument list too long” error, we’ll use printf and xargs to run cp as often as necessary:

printf "%s\0" photo/2017/*.png | xargs -0 cp -t pic/2017/

You can also use mcp from the mmv package Install mmv in the following way:

mcp -n "photo/2017/*.png" pic/2017/

-n let’s mcp only list the changes, remove it to actually perform the copying. Note the quoted asterisk: It’s not evaluated by the shell, but rather by mcp.

edited Jun 13 '18 at 21:32

answered Jun 13 '18 at 21:21

dessert

39,982

But in 2017, there are not all of the files. Some: /photo/2017/11 I do not know about these – Amirhossein WP Jun 13 '18 at 21:37
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@AmirhosseinWP Seems like your question is unclear then – please edit and add the actual file structure, as it is and as you want it to be. – dessert Jun 13 '18 at 21:43

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 02 '19 at 15:29

0

What you want is to copy the directory recursively, so, you should do:

cp -a /photo /pic

This will copy all files and directories recursively and preserves file metadata.

If /photo has files that are not png files that you do not want to copy, you can do this after doing the above command:

find /pic -not -iname '*.png' -type f -print0 | xargs --no-run-if-empty -0 rm

edited Jun 02 '19 at 15:29

double-beep

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answered Jun 14 '18 at 06:47

crass

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Copy images in bash without changing subfolders

2 Answers2