How can I copy all hidden files/directories in the home directory into a separate directory from command line ? I wasn't able to find a lot of material concerning usage of hidden files .
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1recursivley or "flat" (meaning: also from subdirectories)? – Jacob Vlijm Jan 25 '15 at 20:55
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recursively would do the job best, I'd say – user43389 Jan 25 '15 at 20:59
What needs to be done
In principle not a complicated question, however, you need to take care of a few things:
- You need (as I understand) to copy hidden files/directories recursively
- You will run into name clashes (duplicate names, I tried)
The (python) script below takes care of both:
- It searches for files and directories recursively in given (source-) directory
- it copies found files and directories into a given (target) directory
- In case of duplicates, it renames them to
duplicate_1<filename>,duplicate_2<filename>(or directory-) etc.
The script
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import shutil
import sys
import os
directory = sys.argv[1]
target = sys.argv[2]
def handle(name):
n = 1; name_orig = name
while os.path.exists(target+"/"+name):
name = "duplicate_"+str(n)+"_"+name_orig
n = n+1
return target+"/"+name
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(directory):
for name in files:
if name.startswith("."):
subject = root+"/"+name
newfile = handle(name)
try:
shutil.copyfile(subject, newfile)
except:
pass
for dr in dirs:
if dr.startswith("."):
subject = root+"/"+dr
newdir = handle(dr)
try:
shutil.copytree(subject, newdir)
except:
pass
How to use
Copy the script above into an empty file, save it as search_hidden.py. Run it with the source- and target directories as arguments:
python3 /path/to/search_hidden.py <source_directory> <target_directory>
answered Jan 25 '15 at 21:28
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Wow, this seems like a lot of work so thank you so much for your effort and also thank you for providing an explanation ! :) – user43389 Jan 25 '15 at 21:34
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@user43389 Edited the script to prevent it to break on temp files. – Jacob Vlijm Jan 25 '15 at 22:04
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Just wondering why you would run into "name clashes"? Aren't all the names/paths unique in the source? – MrWhite Jan 26 '15 at 11:43
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@w3d duplicate names, there are quite a few if you copy them from
~/recursively (what OP asked for, see comment on the question). – Jacob Vlijm Jan 26 '15 at 11:45
If all the hidden files start with a dot (.), then you can do
cp .?* /path/to/directory
from the directory the hidden files are in. This command says copy all the files starting with a dot (.?*) to the directory specified. '*' is a wildcard.
.?*requires at least one character after the dot '.'
