Shell script: Copy folder with a new name

Question

I'm trying to write this shell script to create in the parent directory a copy of the folders found in the current directory. So far, I wrote this:

for folder in *; do

    mkdir ../$folder;
done

I'd like to do a "find and replace" operation on the folder name, so that, for instance, folder named graphics-HD becomes copied as graphics-SD

Sorry if it's simplistic, but I am absolutely not experienced with shell script / unix.

Thanks a lot! J.

Answer 1

Adding a trailing slash to the wildcard restricts the output to directories

for dir in */; do ...

You'll want to read about bash parameter expansion -- you can do find and replace within the shell:

newname=${dir/%-HD/-SD}

Answer 2

there is nothing wrong with what you have, except it will make folders out of files as well as folders. You can either check that every folder is a directory with [ -d $folder ], or use find. From the folder where you have folders that you wish to copy:

find -type d -maxdepth 1 -exec mkdir "../{}" \+ 

To search and replace, there is rename from rename.berlios.de. you can rename all folders somewhere like this:

renamexm -s/-HD/-SD/ `find . -type d -maxdepth 1`