Backup files with dir structure bash script

Question

I'm making a bash script that should backup all files and dir structure to another dir. I made the following code to do that:

find . -type f -exec cp {} $HOME/$bdir \; -o -type d -exec mkdir -p {} $HOME/$bdir \; ;

The problem is, is that this only copies the files and not the dir structure.

NOTE: I may not use cp -r, cp -R or something like it because this code is part of an assignment.

I hope somebody can put me in the right direction. ;)

Joeri

EDIT:

I changed it to:

find . -type d -exec mkdir -p $HOME/$bdir/{} \; ;
find . -type f -exec cp {} $HOME/$bdir/{} \; ;

And it works! Ty guys ;)

if your original command had ended with ... mkdir -p $HOME/$bdir/{} I think it would have worked. — kdubs
– kdubs, Commented Jan 9, 2013 at 4:22

bta · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-04 21:22:38Z

This sounds like a job for rsync.

You mention that this is an assignment. What are your restrictions? Are you limited to only using find? Does it have to be a single command?

One way to do this is to do it in two find calls. The first call only looks for directories. When a directory is found, mkdir the corresponding directory in the destination hierarchy. The second find call would look for files, and would use a cp command like you currently have.

You can also take each filename, transform the path manually, and use that with the cp command. Here's an example of how to generate the destination filename:

> find . -type f | sed -e "s|^\./|/new/dir/|"
/new/dir/file1.txt
/new/dir/file2.txt
/new/dir/dir1/file1_1.txt
/new/dir/dir1/file1_2.txt

For your purposes, you could write a short bash script that take the source file as input, uses sed to generate the destination filename, and then passes those two paths to cp. The dirname command will return the directory portion of a filename, so mkdir -p $(dirname $destination_path) will ensure that the destination directory exists before you call cp. Armed with a script like that, you can simply have find execute the script for every file it finds.

wildplasser · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-05 18:18:45Z

1

cd olddir; tar c . | (cd newdir; tar xp)

edited Jan 5, 2013 at 18:18

answered Jan 5, 2013 at 17:56

wildplasser

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1 Comment

Gus Shortz Over a year ago

came across this while searching for a way to move a directory, its structure, and all its contents, to another directory. Your options works like a charm and is quite compact. thanks

LavaSlider · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-04 20:51:44Z

0

Can you do your find with "-type d" and exec a "mkdir -p" first, followed by your find that copies the files rather than having it all in one command? It should probably also be mkdir -p $HOME/$bdir/{}.

answered Jan 4, 2013 at 20:51

LavaSlider

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2 Comments

kdubs Over a year ago

you could merge them into the same find with two different expressions for what it's worth.

kdubs Over a year ago

just noticed that, except he's put the {} in the wrong place in the mkdir. I think the original should have worked.

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