How can I write a shell script to go through all the sub-directories below a given directory and in each of those sub-directories search the file called "copyright" for strings like "license" or "GPL" and print the lines with those sub-strings. After running this I should be able to tell what the results were for each copyright file that was found.
3 Answers
Use find with -exec:
find . -name copyright -exec grep -H -e "license" -e "GPL" '{}' + >> results
Command
Using grep and Bash's ** (globstar, for deep expansion):
shopt -s globstar; # enable ** support
grep -i -E 'licence|GPL' **/copyright
Explanation
globstar:
If set, the pattern ** used in a pathname expansion context will match all files and zero or more directories and subdirectories. If the pattern is followed by a /, only directories and subdirectories match.
-E,--extended-regexp:
Interpret PATTERN as an extended regular expression (ERE, see below). (-E is specified by POSIX.)
References
- foo OR bar on the same line with grep ;
globstaroption (in Bash >=4)
3 Comments
sudi
Thanks a lot for the responses. I will try these and let you know.
sudi
The grep works great Edouard but my system does not have globstar.
Édouard Lopez
globstar is available since Bash v4, but off by default. Hence the shopt -s globstar at the beginning. Otherwise use the solution given by @anubhavaHere's a sort of embarrassing script I use for producing a "License Report" for a FreeBSD host. I made it faster by switching out xargs for anubhava's -exec. Thanks!
#!/bin/sh
#
# pkg_license_check
#
# TODO: make this report on unlicensed packages.
#
LICENSES='MIT GPL ART BSD'
for LICENSE in $LICENSES
do
cd /usr/local/share/licenses
num=`find . -name LICENSE -exec grep -e "$LICENSE" '{}' + | wc -l`
echo "Total of $num $LICENSE Licensed packages as follows:"
find . -name LICENSE -exec grep -e "$LICENSE" -e '{}' + | awk -F":" '{sub("^\.\/", "", $1); print "\n" $1 "\n" $2 $3}'
echo -e "\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------- \n\n"
done
A project for one day RSN: rewrite in perl and make "POSIX cross platform" for different packaging systems using plugins. :-)
Comments
findcommand withgrepcan do but I didn't fully understand the last point.awk,wcand friends to pull out the information you need. As I note below this may be a job forperland itsformattools ;-)