Sort Out Files based on File Type.

[harish_28111984]

Hi All,

I am currently using Ubuntu 9.10, and very much liked it.
However, I had used Windows earlier, which used to crash very frequently. So I had to many files over and over again. These has now accumulated to more than 30 GB.

Now I want to sort files according to their file types. Like all *.doc file in "Word Files" Folder, and *.xls to "Excel Files" etc. I need the Command line for this, is it possible to do like this..

"for i in *.doc;cp "$i" "/word/$i";done"

Open to any other suggestions.

Also I need to compare files and if they are the same files (to be Checked with Content not Name), delete the older version, for this any utility/Tools/Programs availble


Thanks,
Harish.A

[deepinlife]

to search in the directory and the subdirectories

find . -name "*.doc" -exec mv {} /path/to/doc/files

this will move the files in a location u choose but it will override the files according to names without comparing the content .
u can add to mv , mv -i , to make it interactive

for comparing , after moving the files in its folder u can use this

for i in * 
do
for j in *
do 
 diff $i $j && [ $i != $j ] && rm $i
done
done

it looks working , try it with caution

[mehorter]

to search in the directory and the subdirectories

find . -name "*.doc" -exec mv {} /path/to/doc/files

remember when using caution it is very easy to just add an 'echo' to your commands to see what would happen. Then if you like the out put remove the echo and run again.


it looks working , try it with caution

echo rm  *files_I_think_would_match*

good? then run

rm  *files_I_think_would_match*

[drl]

Hi.

You might find this useful:

fdupes - finds duplicate files in a given set of directories

see man fdupes for details, and write a few test scripts to see how it works.

I think I would use fdupes before copying the files by content. In Windows the suffix (.doc, .xls, etc) determines the file content. Not so in *nix where the suffix may mean something to other programs (e.g. file.c means something to the c compiler), but not to every utility in general. There is:

file - determine file type

to help you with identification of content; see man file, and again I suggest getting comfortable by writing a few test scripts.

The advice from mehorter is very good to avoid calamities, and a good backup is the final guard against human error, as well as against equipment failure.

Best wishes ... cheers, drl

[harish_28111984]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions, I will try it out.