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Create subdirectory and move files into it

Terminal - Create subdirectory and move files into it
(ls; mkdir subdir; echo subdir) | xargs mv
2009-11-08 11:40:55
User: mechmind
Functions: echo mkdir xargs
4
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Create subdirectory and move files into it

With this form you dont need to cut out target directory using grep/sed/etc.

Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Alternatives

There are 5 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

why not use the && instead of ; ?? it ll check if the previous command was successfull , if yes then execute the next one :

(ls && mkdir subdir && echo subdir) | xargs mv

Comment by eastwind 184 weeks and 3 days ago

FYI, you won't move all the files if xargs has to invoke mv more than once. Just a pitfall to be aware of. Neat command!

Comment by bwoodacre 184 weeks and 3 days ago

you could just:

mkdir subdir; mv * subdir

It will throw an error because you can't move subdir to subdir but will still work.

Comment by sharfah 184 weeks and 3 days ago

To handle filenames with spaces in, and allow for xargs invoking 'mv' more than once:

(ls -1 && mkdir "$1") | xargs -d'\n' mv -t "$1"
Comment by pysquared 184 weeks and 3 days ago

I really wouldn't use && for this. What happens if the mkdir command fails in this snippet:

(ls && mkdir subdir && echo subdir) | xargs mv

The output of ls alone will be piped to mv, which will try to move everything into whatever happens to be last in the list (possibly overwriting it).

Using semicolons means that the 'echo subdir' command still gets called, so mv will try to move into a non-existent subdirectory (which is much less dangerous).

Comment by stevelosh 183 weeks and 6 days ago

Your point of view

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