3

I have 2-3 levels and several folders but in all is a file with the name L_data.txt (among other files). I would like to copy only those L_data.txt together with their parent folders without any of the other files to another place. How can I do that?

E.g.:

./PycharmProjects/folderA/L_data.txt
./PycharmProjects/folderB/L_data.txt
.
.
./PycharmProjectsCluster/folderQ/L_data.txt
./PycharmProjectsCluster/folderR/L_data.txt
.
.

I have found this post and this post but that moves all files without the folders. Thanks for help.

My Work
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1 Answers1

2

Let’s say I want a copy of each L_data.txt in new_dir with its parents preserved. Here is my directory structure right now:

$ tree
.
├── new_dir
├── PycharmProjects
│   ├── folderA
│   │   ├── foo.txt
│   │   └── L_data.txt
│   └── folderB
│       ├── foo.txt
│       └── L_data.txt
└── PycharmProjectsCluster
    └── folderQ
        ├── foo.txt
        └── L_data.txt

6 directories, 6 files

You can see that I have two file in each directory, L_data.txt and foo.txt.

We can use find command to find all files named L_data.txt. Then using its --exec option we will run cp --parents so it copies the files into the new destination while keeping their parents.

find . -name L_data.txt -exec cp --parents -t new_dir/ {} +

The result:

$ tree new_dir/
new_dir/
├── PycharmProjects
│   ├── folderA
│   │   └── L_data.txt
│   └── folderB
│       └── L_data.txt
└── PycharmProjectsCluster
    └── folderQ
        └── L_data.txt

5 directories, 3 files
Ravexina
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  • Hi, thank you for your answer but for some reason, it does not work. Listing the files as find . -name L_data.txt works but when I use the full command, it freezes and does not copy. – My Work Jun 22 '20 at 12:17
  • EDIT: it works if levels are only 2 but not 3. – My Work Jun 22 '20 at 12:41
  • Please edit your question and add an example that does not work. – Ravexina Jun 22 '20 at 18:33
  • find . -name L_data.txt -exec cp --parents -t new_dir/ {} \; instead of the proposed seems to work. Then I have another problem with the find itself with which I do not want to spam here. Thanks again. – My Work Jun 23 '20 at 19:06