Using xargs with mv and mkdir command in Linux

Question

I am attempting to create a directory using the command mkdir. However, I would like to move a subset of files into that directory. I understand I can use xargs, however my attempts have failed. For example, I have tried mkdir test | xargs -i mv test.text {}. It creates the directory, but it does not move the file test.txt into it after it has been created.

Answer 1

mkdir does not output anything, therefore xargs will not do anything useful. I don't understand exactly what you want to do, so you should explain your question better.

"would like to move a subset of files into that directory" -> do files in this subset share one or more traits? If yes, use the find command like this:

find [conditions] -exec mv "{}" dirname \;

If you want to avoid typing the name of the directory twice, or if you are doing this from a script, you can do something like

dirname=test
mkdir $dirname && mv filename $dirname

Answer 2

I don't think mkdir produces any output to pipe to xargs.

Doing "mkdir test1 test2 testhello3 | grep hello" doesn't produce any output while doing "ls | grep hello" will show me "testhello3".

Can you produce the folders first and then use ls then grep and then xargs to do it?

ls | grep (unique search to get folder name) | xargs -i mv test.txt {}

Maybe more information on criteria of moving files and such would be helpful.

Answer 3

My guess, close to user49740's answer:

mkdir test && find -type f -name 'test.*' -exec mv {} test \;

how many diferent directories do you want to create?