How to remove spaces from variable/directories in shell?

Question

I have this bit of code:

find . ! -path . -type d -maxdepth 3 -mindepth 3 -exec sh -c '
    dir="$0"
    tvnamer --batch $dir
    mv $dir/*.mkv $dir/..
    [ -f $dir/*.part ] || trash $dir
' {} ';'

However, it breaks because there are spaces in directory names in $dir (TVnamer gets confused).

./Show/Season/[ www.Torrenting.com ] - Castle.2009.S06E01.720p.HDTV.X264-DIMENSION
./Show/Season/[ www.Torrenting.com ] - Revenge.S03E01.720p.HDTV.x264-2HD

How can I remove the spaces / rename the folders in $dir and then pass that to the rest of the code?

fedorqui · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-21 10:21:15Z

2

Use double quotes whenever you reference $dir:

find . ! -path . -type d -maxdepth 3 -mindepth 3 -exec sh -c '
    dir="$0"
    tvnamer --batch "$dir"
    mv "$dir"/*.mkv "$dir"/..
    [ -f "$dir"/*.part ] || trash "$dir"
' {} ';'

edited Oct 21, 2013 at 10:21

answered Oct 21, 2013 at 10:03

fedorqui

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Comments

cdarke · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-21 10:25:58Z

1

As @fedorqui said, it is a bug in your "bit of code" where it has not quoted the directory name. However, to answer your question How to remove spaces from variable/directories in shell?:

dir="Program Files"
new_dir=${dir// /}
mv "$dir" "$new_dir"

The string substitution is supported in Bash and ksh93 (and maybe elsewhere). ${dir// /} means: take the variable dir and replace globally (//) the pattern space with nothing (the text after the final /).

answered Oct 21, 2013 at 10:25

cdarke

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