My goals are to:

1. Do it automatically (without adding a line to my script every time I add or change the location of a config file)
2. The files in the git repo folder should not be hidden, but the symlinks in my home directory should
3. Existing files of the same name should be overwritten, but not directories. For example if I have config/conf.txt in my dotfiles repo, it shouldn't overwrite the entire ~/.config folder, but simply add a link to conf.txt inside ~/.config.

I think my current solution does these, but I'm sure it could be done better:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# change this if dotfiles directory is moved or renamed
DOTFILES_DIR="$HOME/dotfiles"

echo -n Creating symlinks...

shopt -s extglob dotglob nocaseglob

# create hidden symlinks to the files
for f in $DOTFILES_DIR/!(readme.*|${0##*/}); do
    cp -asf "$f" "$HOME/dotfiles/.${f##*/}"
done

# copy links into home directory, remove original links
for f in $DOTFILES_DIR/!(!(.*)|.git|.gitignore|*.swp|.|..); do  # this is ugly
    cp -alf "$f" "$HOME"
    rm -r "$f"
done

echo done

I think I should be able to copy the files directly to the home directory, but I had some trouble getting that to work right if a destination folder already existed.

My goals are to:

1. Do it automatically (without adding a line to my script every time I add or change the location of a config file)
2. The files in the git repo folder should not be hidden, but the symlinks in my home directory should
3. Existing files of the same name should be overwritten, but not directories. For example if I have config/conf.txt in my dotfiles repo, it shouldn't overwrite the entire ~/.config folder, but simply add a link to conf.txt inside ~/.config.

My current solution does these, but it could probably be done better:

DOTFILES_DIR="$HOME/dotfiles"

echo -n Creating symlinks...

shopt -s extglob nocaseglob

# Create hidden symlinks, hard link them to $HOME, rm old symlinks
for dotfile in $DOTFILES_DIR/!(readme*|${0##*/}); do
    hidden="$DOTFILES_DIR/.${dotfile##*/}"
    cp -asf "$dotfile" "$hidden"
    cp -alf "$hidden" "$HOME"
    rm -r "$hidden"
done

echo done

I think I should be able to copy the files directly to the home directory, but I had some trouble getting that to work right if a destination folder already existed.

Edit: I was able to eliminate the second for loop. Much better. There may still be a better way, though.

My goals are to:

1. Do it automatically (without adding a line to my script every time I add or change the location of a config file)
2. The files in the git repo folder should not be hidden, but the symlinks in my home directory should
3. Existing files of the same name should be overwritten, but not directories. For example if I have config/conf.txt in my dotfiles repo, it shouldn't overwrite the entire ~/.config folder, but simply add a link to conf.txt inside ~/.config.

I think my current solution does these, but I'm sure it could be done better:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# change this if dotfiles directory is moved or renamed
DOTFILES_DIR="$HOME/dotfiles"

echo -n Creating symlinks...

shopt -s extglob

# create hidden symlinks to the files
for f in $DOTFILES_DIR/!(README.md|install.sh); do
    cp -asf "$f" "$HOME/dotfiles/.${f##*/}"
done

shopt -s dotglob

# copy links into home directory, remove original links
for f in $DOTFILES_DIR/!(!(.*)|.git|.gitignore|*.swp|.|..); do  # this is ugly
    cp -alf "$f" "$HOME"
    rm -r "$f"
done

echo done

I think I should be able to copy the files directly to the home directory, but I had some trouble getting that to work right if a destination folder already existed.

My goals are to:

1. Do it automatically (without adding a line to my script every time I add or change the location of a config file)
2. The files in the git repo folder should not be hidden, but the symlinks in my home directory should
3. Existing files of the same name should be overwritten, but not directories. For example if I have config/conf.txt in my dotfiles repo, it shouldn't overwrite the entire ~/.config folder, but simply add a link to conf.txt inside ~/.config.

I think my current solution does these, but I'm sure it could be done better:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# change this if dotfiles directory is moved or renamed
DOTFILES_DIR="$HOME/dotfiles"

echo -n Creating symlinks...

shopt -s extglob dotglob nocaseglob

# create hidden symlinks to the files
for f in $DOTFILES_DIR/!(readme.*|${0##*/}); do
    cp -asf "$f" "$HOME/dotfiles/.${f##*/}"
done

# copy links into home directory, remove original links
for f in $DOTFILES_DIR/!(!(.*)|.git|.gitignore|*.swp|.|..); do  # this is ugly
    cp -alf "$f" "$HOME"
    rm -r "$f"
done

echo done

I think I should be able to copy the files directly to the home directory, but I had some trouble getting that to work right if a destination folder already existed.