Backing up files script?

robfullam

Hey,

I need help.. I'm trying to figure out a shell script to back up all the pdf's files within my home directory?

Im new to all this stuff and really wanna learn. Anyone any ideas?

Cheers in Advance!

GreenHell

#!/bin/bash

find ~/ -name "*.pdf" -exec mv '{}' /path/to/somewhere


Should do the trick for you

syklops

GreenHell wrote: »

#!/bin/bash

find ~/ -name "*.pdf" -exec mv '{}' /path/to/somewhere


Should do the trick for you

That will backup all PDFs in the home directory and recursively through all sub-directories. Is that what you want OP, or do you just want PDFs in your home directory, not in sub-directories?

Also, where are you backing them up to? GreenHell's script will move them to another directory assuming it is mounted, but perhaps you want to backup over the network? If so, rsync is your man.

Please give us more information so we can help you better.

robfullam

How can i back them up in the current directory and make them .bak files? Im not doing it over a network.

Cheers

syklops

So you want to backup all files in the current directory, and give them the extension .bak?

#!/bin/sh
for f in *.pdf
do
  mv "$f" "$f.bak"
done

robfullam

How do i combine GreenHalls and Skylops scripts together to backup all the files in and under my home directory including sub directories

syklops

why dont you tell us how you think you could do it, and we can give you pointers. The way i learnt scripting was reading a bit, then trying a bit, and so on. Read the rules and then trial and error. That way you will learn way more.

Skrynesaver

I'd also consider using cp rather than mv as you may want to hang on to the originals

robfullam

#!/bin/sh

for f in *.pdf

do

cp "$f" "$f.bak"

done

that works fine, but it wont search sub directories within my home folder too. I've tried various amounts of things including some of GreenHalls scripting. its just over my head!

HELP!

syklops

#!/bin/sh

for f in *.pdf

do

cp "$f" "$f.bak"

done

Try to understand what it is doing.

for f in *.pdf. That basically means take all files ending in .pdf and copy each so it reads file.pdf.bak.

Try writing pseudo-code to get your head around it. This is english words for each logical step of the script. Once you figure out each step in english, replace the functions with bash keywords.

So the pseudo-code is:

take all files that are .pdf in all sub directories
then for each one, give it the extension .bak.

the first line of the above pseudo-code you already have from GreenHell's code. The second line you already have from mine. You just need to add them together, and get what the logic is. Do you know what a backtick is?

robfullam

A backtick is `.

Whats its function??

I know in english what i want to do but i just cant find the command to search sub-directories also. i am only doing this 3 weeks and really want to learn it.

syklops

robfullam wrote: »

A backtick is `.

Whats its function??

I know in english what i want to do but i just cant find the command to search sub-directories also. i am only doing this 3 weeks and really want to learn it.

Correct, though if you dont know what a backtick does, I suggest you go and do some more reading. The only way I could solve your problem(albeit with out thinking too hard about it), was using backticks.

robfullam

#!/bin/sh

find . -type f -name '*.sh' |
while read 
do
 cp "$f" "$f.bak"
done

GOT IT

pickarooney

^^That will backup .sh files not .pdf files.