Terminal find Command: Manipulate Output String

Question

I am trying to manipulate the filename from the find command:

find . -name "*.xib" -exec echo '{}' ';'

For example, this might print:

./Views/Help/VCHelp.xib

I would like to make it:

./Views/Help/VCHelp.strings

What I tried:

find . -name "*.xib" -exec echo ${'{}'%.*} ';'

But, the '{}' is not being recognized as a string or something...

I also tried the following:

find . -name "*.xib" -exec filename='{}' ";" -exec echo ${filename%.*} ";"

But it is trying to execute a command called "filename" instead of assigning the variable:

find: filename: No such file or directory

I edited answer to explain why you can't simply use -exec filename='{}' ";", please make sure you read it. — livibetter
– livibetter, Commented Nov 26, 2012 at 11:33

livibetter · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-26 11:27:26Z

7

You can't use Parameter Expansion with literal string. Try to store it in a variable first:

find . -name '*.xib' -exec bash -c "f='{}' ; echo \${f%.xib}.strings" \;

-exec sees first argument after it as the command, therefore you can't simply give it filename='{}' because find doesn't use sh to execute what you give it. If you want to run some shell stuff, you need to use sh or bash to wrap up.

Or use sed:

find . -name '*.xib' | sed 's/.xlib$/.strings/'

answered Nov 26, 2012 at 11:27

livibetter

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6 Comments

Mazyod Over a year ago

Perfect, I wanted to understand why my trials failed. Thanks.

gniourf_gniourf Over a year ago

Of course, your first method fails miserably if a file name contains a single quote.

gniourf_gniourf Over a year ago

Also, try to touch $'lol.xib\nnotfunny.xib' and see what happens... here both methods fail miserably. I hope this will not be used in production scripts.

livibetter Over a year ago

@gniourf_gniourf If there is really a production environment for allowing those characters in filenames, then just save a script echo "${1%.xib}.strings" and run with -exec ./script '{}' \;.

gniourf_gniourf Over a year ago

@livibetter yes! or you can use globstar and get rid of the find altogether for such simple searches.

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gniourf_gniourf · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-26 14:23:38Z

2

For such a simple search, you can use a pure bash solution:

#!/bin/bash

shopt -s globstar
shopt -s nullglob

found=( **.xib )

for f in "${found[@]}"; do
   echo "${f%xib}strings"
done

Turning the globstar shell option on enables the ** to "match all files and zero or more directories and subdirectories" (as quoted from the bash reference manual). The nullglob option helps if there's no match: in this case, the glob will be expanded to nothing instead of the ugly **.xib. This solution is safe regarding filenames containing funny characters.

answered Nov 26, 2012 at 14:23

gniourf_gniourf

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Comments

neevek · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-26 11:27:13Z

1

find . -name "*.xib" | sed -e 's/\.xib$/.strings/'

answered Nov 26, 2012 at 11:27

neevek

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