How can I find files and then use xargs to move them?












25















I want to find some files and then move them.



I can find the file with:



$ find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name x*


I tried to move them to my ~/play directory with:



$ find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name x* | xargs mv ~/play/


but that didn't work. Obviously mv needs two arguments.

Not sure if (or how) to reference the xargs 'current item' in the mv command?










share|improve this question


















  • 3





    Why? You can use placeholder with -I: find . | xargs -I'{}' mv '{}' ~/play/, but as man says, that “Implies -x and -L 1.” So no gain. Better keep it simple and use find . -exec mv '{}' ~/play/ ;

    – manatwork
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:17













  • Please post as answer to see votes if you wouldn't mind :)

    – Michael Durrant
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:21











  • Just asked for your reason, as I had the feeling I didn't got the point. If Drav Sloan adds the note on the implied options, his answer will be as good as the best I could write. So better go with that.

    – manatwork
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:28











  • possible duplicate of Find pattern and move

    – slm
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:39











  • @manatwork I've edited my answer to reflect those points duder :)

    – Drav Sloan
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:46
















25















I want to find some files and then move them.



I can find the file with:



$ find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name x*


I tried to move them to my ~/play directory with:



$ find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name x* | xargs mv ~/play/


but that didn't work. Obviously mv needs two arguments.

Not sure if (or how) to reference the xargs 'current item' in the mv command?










share|improve this question


















  • 3





    Why? You can use placeholder with -I: find . | xargs -I'{}' mv '{}' ~/play/, but as man says, that “Implies -x and -L 1.” So no gain. Better keep it simple and use find . -exec mv '{}' ~/play/ ;

    – manatwork
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:17













  • Please post as answer to see votes if you wouldn't mind :)

    – Michael Durrant
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:21











  • Just asked for your reason, as I had the feeling I didn't got the point. If Drav Sloan adds the note on the implied options, his answer will be as good as the best I could write. So better go with that.

    – manatwork
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:28











  • possible duplicate of Find pattern and move

    – slm
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:39











  • @manatwork I've edited my answer to reflect those points duder :)

    – Drav Sloan
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:46














25












25








25


11






I want to find some files and then move them.



I can find the file with:



$ find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name x*


I tried to move them to my ~/play directory with:



$ find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name x* | xargs mv ~/play/


but that didn't work. Obviously mv needs two arguments.

Not sure if (or how) to reference the xargs 'current item' in the mv command?










share|improve this question














I want to find some files and then move them.



I can find the file with:



$ find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name x*


I tried to move them to my ~/play directory with:



$ find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name x* | xargs mv ~/play/


but that didn't work. Obviously mv needs two arguments.

Not sure if (or how) to reference the xargs 'current item' in the mv command?







find rename xargs






share|improve this question













share|improve this question











share|improve this question




share|improve this question










asked Sep 16 '13 at 14:12









Michael DurrantMichael Durrant

16.3k44121184




16.3k44121184








  • 3





    Why? You can use placeholder with -I: find . | xargs -I'{}' mv '{}' ~/play/, but as man says, that “Implies -x and -L 1.” So no gain. Better keep it simple and use find . -exec mv '{}' ~/play/ ;

    – manatwork
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:17













  • Please post as answer to see votes if you wouldn't mind :)

    – Michael Durrant
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:21











  • Just asked for your reason, as I had the feeling I didn't got the point. If Drav Sloan adds the note on the implied options, his answer will be as good as the best I could write. So better go with that.

    – manatwork
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:28











  • possible duplicate of Find pattern and move

    – slm
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:39











  • @manatwork I've edited my answer to reflect those points duder :)

    – Drav Sloan
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:46














  • 3





    Why? You can use placeholder with -I: find . | xargs -I'{}' mv '{}' ~/play/, but as man says, that “Implies -x and -L 1.” So no gain. Better keep it simple and use find . -exec mv '{}' ~/play/ ;

    – manatwork
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:17













  • Please post as answer to see votes if you wouldn't mind :)

    – Michael Durrant
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:21











  • Just asked for your reason, as I had the feeling I didn't got the point. If Drav Sloan adds the note on the implied options, his answer will be as good as the best I could write. So better go with that.

    – manatwork
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:28











  • possible duplicate of Find pattern and move

    – slm
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:39











  • @manatwork I've edited my answer to reflect those points duder :)

    – Drav Sloan
    Sep 16 '13 at 14:46








3




3





Why? You can use placeholder with -I: find . | xargs -I'{}' mv '{}' ~/play/, but as man says, that “Implies -x and -L 1.” So no gain. Better keep it simple and use find . -exec mv '{}' ~/play/ ;

– manatwork
Sep 16 '13 at 14:17







Why? You can use placeholder with -I: find . | xargs -I'{}' mv '{}' ~/play/, but as man says, that “Implies -x and -L 1.” So no gain. Better keep it simple and use find . -exec mv '{}' ~/play/ ;

– manatwork
Sep 16 '13 at 14:17















Please post as answer to see votes if you wouldn't mind :)

– Michael Durrant
Sep 16 '13 at 14:21





Please post as answer to see votes if you wouldn't mind :)

– Michael Durrant
Sep 16 '13 at 14:21













Just asked for your reason, as I had the feeling I didn't got the point. If Drav Sloan adds the note on the implied options, his answer will be as good as the best I could write. So better go with that.

– manatwork
Sep 16 '13 at 14:28





Just asked for your reason, as I had the feeling I didn't got the point. If Drav Sloan adds the note on the implied options, his answer will be as good as the best I could write. So better go with that.

– manatwork
Sep 16 '13 at 14:28













possible duplicate of Find pattern and move

– slm
Sep 16 '13 at 14:39





possible duplicate of Find pattern and move

– slm
Sep 16 '13 at 14:39













@manatwork I've edited my answer to reflect those points duder :)

– Drav Sloan
Sep 16 '13 at 14:46





@manatwork I've edited my answer to reflect those points duder :)

– Drav Sloan
Sep 16 '13 at 14:46










3 Answers
3






active

oldest

votes


















38














Look at Stephane's answer for the best method, take a look at my answer for reasons not to use the more obvious solutions (and reasons why they are not the most efficient).



You can use the -I option of xargs:



find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name "x*" | xargs -I '{}' mv '{}' ~/play/


Which works in a similar mechanism to find and {}. I would also quote your -name argument (because a file starting with x in the present directory would be file-globed and passed as an argument to find - which will not give the expected behavior!).



However, as pointed out by manatwork, as detailed in the xargs man page:



   -I replace-str
Replace occurrences of replace-str in the initial-arguments with
names read from standard input. Also, unquoted blanks do not
terminate input items; instead the separator is the newline
character. Implies -x and -L 1.


The important thing to note is that -L 1 means that only one line of output from find will be processed at a time. This means that's syntactically the same as:



find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name "x*" -exec mv '{}' ~/play/


(which executes a single mv operation for each file).



Even using the GNU -0 xargs argument and the find -print0 argument causes exactly the same behavior of -I - this is to clone() a process for each file mv:



find . -name "x*" -print0 | strace xargs -0 -I '{}' mv '{}' /tmp/other

.
.
read(0, "./foobar1/xorgslsala11./foobar1"..., 4096) = 870
mmap(NULL, 135168, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7fbb82fad000
open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gconv/gconv-modules.cache", O_RDONLY) = 3
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=26066, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 26066, PROT_READ, MAP_SHARED, 3, 0) = 0x7fbb82fa6000
close(3) = 0
clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fbb835af9d0) = 661
wait4(-1, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 661
--- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fbb835af9d0) = 662
wait4(-1, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 662
--- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
.
.
.





share|improve this answer


























  • That assumes file names don't contain newline, single quote, double quote or backslash characters.

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Sep 16 '13 at 15:31



















15














With GNU tools:



find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name 'x*' -print0 |
xargs -r0 mv -t ~/play/


The -t (--target) option is GNU specific. -print0, -r, -0, while non-standard and originating in GNU are also found in some other implementations like on some BSDs.



POSIXly:



find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name 'x*' -exec sh -c '
exec mv "$@" ~/play/' sh {} +


Both run as few mv commands as necessary and work whatever characters the file names may contain. The GNU one may have the advantage that find keeps looking for files while mv starts moving the first batch.



Beware that all the files and directories will end up in one directory, beware of clashes if several files in different directories have the same name.






share|improve this answer


























  • This solution is much better performing, since it calls mv once for all arguments (or for all of -L or -n, if supplied). Otherwise, calling mv for each file will get old (and slow) fast.

    – r2evans
    Feb 12 '18 at 21:25



















0














Perhaps this command is possible now and wasn't back in 2013, but this works perfectly for me:



ls pattern* | xargs mv -t DESTINATION/


The -t key puts the destination folder first, freeing up mv command to have all last arguments as just the files to be moved.






share|improve this answer























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    3 Answers
    3






    active

    oldest

    votes








    3 Answers
    3






    active

    oldest

    votes









    active

    oldest

    votes






    active

    oldest

    votes









    38














    Look at Stephane's answer for the best method, take a look at my answer for reasons not to use the more obvious solutions (and reasons why they are not the most efficient).



    You can use the -I option of xargs:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name "x*" | xargs -I '{}' mv '{}' ~/play/


    Which works in a similar mechanism to find and {}. I would also quote your -name argument (because a file starting with x in the present directory would be file-globed and passed as an argument to find - which will not give the expected behavior!).



    However, as pointed out by manatwork, as detailed in the xargs man page:



       -I replace-str
    Replace occurrences of replace-str in the initial-arguments with
    names read from standard input. Also, unquoted blanks do not
    terminate input items; instead the separator is the newline
    character. Implies -x and -L 1.


    The important thing to note is that -L 1 means that only one line of output from find will be processed at a time. This means that's syntactically the same as:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name "x*" -exec mv '{}' ~/play/


    (which executes a single mv operation for each file).



    Even using the GNU -0 xargs argument and the find -print0 argument causes exactly the same behavior of -I - this is to clone() a process for each file mv:



    find . -name "x*" -print0 | strace xargs -0 -I '{}' mv '{}' /tmp/other

    .
    .
    read(0, "./foobar1/xorgslsala11./foobar1"..., 4096) = 870
    mmap(NULL, 135168, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7fbb82fad000
    open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gconv/gconv-modules.cache", O_RDONLY) = 3
    fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=26066, ...}) = 0
    mmap(NULL, 26066, PROT_READ, MAP_SHARED, 3, 0) = 0x7fbb82fa6000
    close(3) = 0
    clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fbb835af9d0) = 661
    wait4(-1, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 661
    --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
    clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fbb835af9d0) = 662
    wait4(-1, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 662
    --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
    .
    .
    .





    share|improve this answer


























    • That assumes file names don't contain newline, single quote, double quote or backslash characters.

      – Stéphane Chazelas
      Sep 16 '13 at 15:31
















    38














    Look at Stephane's answer for the best method, take a look at my answer for reasons not to use the more obvious solutions (and reasons why they are not the most efficient).



    You can use the -I option of xargs:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name "x*" | xargs -I '{}' mv '{}' ~/play/


    Which works in a similar mechanism to find and {}. I would also quote your -name argument (because a file starting with x in the present directory would be file-globed and passed as an argument to find - which will not give the expected behavior!).



    However, as pointed out by manatwork, as detailed in the xargs man page:



       -I replace-str
    Replace occurrences of replace-str in the initial-arguments with
    names read from standard input. Also, unquoted blanks do not
    terminate input items; instead the separator is the newline
    character. Implies -x and -L 1.


    The important thing to note is that -L 1 means that only one line of output from find will be processed at a time. This means that's syntactically the same as:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name "x*" -exec mv '{}' ~/play/


    (which executes a single mv operation for each file).



    Even using the GNU -0 xargs argument and the find -print0 argument causes exactly the same behavior of -I - this is to clone() a process for each file mv:



    find . -name "x*" -print0 | strace xargs -0 -I '{}' mv '{}' /tmp/other

    .
    .
    read(0, "./foobar1/xorgslsala11./foobar1"..., 4096) = 870
    mmap(NULL, 135168, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7fbb82fad000
    open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gconv/gconv-modules.cache", O_RDONLY) = 3
    fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=26066, ...}) = 0
    mmap(NULL, 26066, PROT_READ, MAP_SHARED, 3, 0) = 0x7fbb82fa6000
    close(3) = 0
    clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fbb835af9d0) = 661
    wait4(-1, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 661
    --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
    clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fbb835af9d0) = 662
    wait4(-1, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 662
    --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
    .
    .
    .





    share|improve this answer


























    • That assumes file names don't contain newline, single quote, double quote or backslash characters.

      – Stéphane Chazelas
      Sep 16 '13 at 15:31














    38












    38








    38







    Look at Stephane's answer for the best method, take a look at my answer for reasons not to use the more obvious solutions (and reasons why they are not the most efficient).



    You can use the -I option of xargs:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name "x*" | xargs -I '{}' mv '{}' ~/play/


    Which works in a similar mechanism to find and {}. I would also quote your -name argument (because a file starting with x in the present directory would be file-globed and passed as an argument to find - which will not give the expected behavior!).



    However, as pointed out by manatwork, as detailed in the xargs man page:



       -I replace-str
    Replace occurrences of replace-str in the initial-arguments with
    names read from standard input. Also, unquoted blanks do not
    terminate input items; instead the separator is the newline
    character. Implies -x and -L 1.


    The important thing to note is that -L 1 means that only one line of output from find will be processed at a time. This means that's syntactically the same as:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name "x*" -exec mv '{}' ~/play/


    (which executes a single mv operation for each file).



    Even using the GNU -0 xargs argument and the find -print0 argument causes exactly the same behavior of -I - this is to clone() a process for each file mv:



    find . -name "x*" -print0 | strace xargs -0 -I '{}' mv '{}' /tmp/other

    .
    .
    read(0, "./foobar1/xorgslsala11./foobar1"..., 4096) = 870
    mmap(NULL, 135168, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7fbb82fad000
    open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gconv/gconv-modules.cache", O_RDONLY) = 3
    fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=26066, ...}) = 0
    mmap(NULL, 26066, PROT_READ, MAP_SHARED, 3, 0) = 0x7fbb82fa6000
    close(3) = 0
    clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fbb835af9d0) = 661
    wait4(-1, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 661
    --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
    clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fbb835af9d0) = 662
    wait4(-1, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 662
    --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
    .
    .
    .





    share|improve this answer















    Look at Stephane's answer for the best method, take a look at my answer for reasons not to use the more obvious solutions (and reasons why they are not the most efficient).



    You can use the -I option of xargs:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name "x*" | xargs -I '{}' mv '{}' ~/play/


    Which works in a similar mechanism to find and {}. I would also quote your -name argument (because a file starting with x in the present directory would be file-globed and passed as an argument to find - which will not give the expected behavior!).



    However, as pointed out by manatwork, as detailed in the xargs man page:



       -I replace-str
    Replace occurrences of replace-str in the initial-arguments with
    names read from standard input. Also, unquoted blanks do not
    terminate input items; instead the separator is the newline
    character. Implies -x and -L 1.


    The important thing to note is that -L 1 means that only one line of output from find will be processed at a time. This means that's syntactically the same as:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name "x*" -exec mv '{}' ~/play/


    (which executes a single mv operation for each file).



    Even using the GNU -0 xargs argument and the find -print0 argument causes exactly the same behavior of -I - this is to clone() a process for each file mv:



    find . -name "x*" -print0 | strace xargs -0 -I '{}' mv '{}' /tmp/other

    .
    .
    read(0, "./foobar1/xorgslsala11./foobar1"..., 4096) = 870
    mmap(NULL, 135168, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7fbb82fad000
    open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gconv/gconv-modules.cache", O_RDONLY) = 3
    fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=26066, ...}) = 0
    mmap(NULL, 26066, PROT_READ, MAP_SHARED, 3, 0) = 0x7fbb82fa6000
    close(3) = 0
    clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fbb835af9d0) = 661
    wait4(-1, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 661
    --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
    clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x7fbb835af9d0) = 662
    wait4(-1, [{WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 0}], 0, NULL) = 662
    --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) ---
    .
    .
    .






    share|improve this answer














    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer








    edited Sep 16 '13 at 17:59

























    answered Sep 16 '13 at 14:18









    Drav SloanDrav Sloan

    9,93323138




    9,93323138













    • That assumes file names don't contain newline, single quote, double quote or backslash characters.

      – Stéphane Chazelas
      Sep 16 '13 at 15:31



















    • That assumes file names don't contain newline, single quote, double quote or backslash characters.

      – Stéphane Chazelas
      Sep 16 '13 at 15:31

















    That assumes file names don't contain newline, single quote, double quote or backslash characters.

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Sep 16 '13 at 15:31





    That assumes file names don't contain newline, single quote, double quote or backslash characters.

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Sep 16 '13 at 15:31













    15














    With GNU tools:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name 'x*' -print0 |
    xargs -r0 mv -t ~/play/


    The -t (--target) option is GNU specific. -print0, -r, -0, while non-standard and originating in GNU are also found in some other implementations like on some BSDs.



    POSIXly:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name 'x*' -exec sh -c '
    exec mv "$@" ~/play/' sh {} +


    Both run as few mv commands as necessary and work whatever characters the file names may contain. The GNU one may have the advantage that find keeps looking for files while mv starts moving the first batch.



    Beware that all the files and directories will end up in one directory, beware of clashes if several files in different directories have the same name.






    share|improve this answer


























    • This solution is much better performing, since it calls mv once for all arguments (or for all of -L or -n, if supplied). Otherwise, calling mv for each file will get old (and slow) fast.

      – r2evans
      Feb 12 '18 at 21:25
















    15














    With GNU tools:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name 'x*' -print0 |
    xargs -r0 mv -t ~/play/


    The -t (--target) option is GNU specific. -print0, -r, -0, while non-standard and originating in GNU are also found in some other implementations like on some BSDs.



    POSIXly:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name 'x*' -exec sh -c '
    exec mv "$@" ~/play/' sh {} +


    Both run as few mv commands as necessary and work whatever characters the file names may contain. The GNU one may have the advantage that find keeps looking for files while mv starts moving the first batch.



    Beware that all the files and directories will end up in one directory, beware of clashes if several files in different directories have the same name.






    share|improve this answer


























    • This solution is much better performing, since it calls mv once for all arguments (or for all of -L or -n, if supplied). Otherwise, calling mv for each file will get old (and slow) fast.

      – r2evans
      Feb 12 '18 at 21:25














    15












    15








    15







    With GNU tools:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name 'x*' -print0 |
    xargs -r0 mv -t ~/play/


    The -t (--target) option is GNU specific. -print0, -r, -0, while non-standard and originating in GNU are also found in some other implementations like on some BSDs.



    POSIXly:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name 'x*' -exec sh -c '
    exec mv "$@" ~/play/' sh {} +


    Both run as few mv commands as necessary and work whatever characters the file names may contain. The GNU one may have the advantage that find keeps looking for files while mv starts moving the first batch.



    Beware that all the files and directories will end up in one directory, beware of clashes if several files in different directories have the same name.






    share|improve this answer















    With GNU tools:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name 'x*' -print0 |
    xargs -r0 mv -t ~/play/


    The -t (--target) option is GNU specific. -print0, -r, -0, while non-standard and originating in GNU are also found in some other implementations like on some BSDs.



    POSIXly:



    find /tmp/ -ctime -1 -name 'x*' -exec sh -c '
    exec mv "$@" ~/play/' sh {} +


    Both run as few mv commands as necessary and work whatever characters the file names may contain. The GNU one may have the advantage that find keeps looking for files while mv starts moving the first batch.



    Beware that all the files and directories will end up in one directory, beware of clashes if several files in different directories have the same name.







    share|improve this answer














    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer








    edited Sep 16 '13 at 19:48

























    answered Sep 16 '13 at 15:28









    Stéphane ChazelasStéphane Chazelas

    309k57582942




    309k57582942













    • This solution is much better performing, since it calls mv once for all arguments (or for all of -L or -n, if supplied). Otherwise, calling mv for each file will get old (and slow) fast.

      – r2evans
      Feb 12 '18 at 21:25



















    • This solution is much better performing, since it calls mv once for all arguments (or for all of -L or -n, if supplied). Otherwise, calling mv for each file will get old (and slow) fast.

      – r2evans
      Feb 12 '18 at 21:25

















    This solution is much better performing, since it calls mv once for all arguments (or for all of -L or -n, if supplied). Otherwise, calling mv for each file will get old (and slow) fast.

    – r2evans
    Feb 12 '18 at 21:25





    This solution is much better performing, since it calls mv once for all arguments (or for all of -L or -n, if supplied). Otherwise, calling mv for each file will get old (and slow) fast.

    – r2evans
    Feb 12 '18 at 21:25











    0














    Perhaps this command is possible now and wasn't back in 2013, but this works perfectly for me:



    ls pattern* | xargs mv -t DESTINATION/


    The -t key puts the destination folder first, freeing up mv command to have all last arguments as just the files to be moved.






    share|improve this answer




























      0














      Perhaps this command is possible now and wasn't back in 2013, but this works perfectly for me:



      ls pattern* | xargs mv -t DESTINATION/


      The -t key puts the destination folder first, freeing up mv command to have all last arguments as just the files to be moved.






      share|improve this answer


























        0












        0








        0







        Perhaps this command is possible now and wasn't back in 2013, but this works perfectly for me:



        ls pattern* | xargs mv -t DESTINATION/


        The -t key puts the destination folder first, freeing up mv command to have all last arguments as just the files to be moved.






        share|improve this answer













        Perhaps this command is possible now and wasn't back in 2013, but this works perfectly for me:



        ls pattern* | xargs mv -t DESTINATION/


        The -t key puts the destination folder first, freeing up mv command to have all last arguments as just the files to be moved.







        share|improve this answer












        share|improve this answer



        share|improve this answer










        answered 1 hour ago









        Nikhil VJNikhil VJ

        1012




        1012






























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