[X-Unix] Script - works, but not where I need it to

[Bert Knabe]

On Jul 1, 2004, at 12:23 AM, William H. Magill wrote:

>
> On 30 Jun, 2004, at 21:08, Bert Knabe wrote:
>
>> I have a shell script to copy all files added to a folder in the last 
>> 24 hours to another folder. It works, but only when invoked from my 
>> computer. When invoked on our Xserve, it gets the following error:
>>
>> [computer:/Users/Shared] admin% sh filecopy22.txt
>> filecopy22.txt: /usr/bin/find: Argument list too long
>>
>> The script is just a line or two:
>>
>> find /Volumes/composing/\ \ \ Running\ Ads/* -mtime 1 -exec cp -p {} 
>> /Volumes/Online/\PDF\'S/In/ \;
>
> Pretty standard problem with find (and ls) -- the argument list is the 
> number of files in the directory(s) "found". On the server it's 
> probably much larger than on your local machine.
>
> You need to use xargs ... which normally you pipe into. (man xargs).

Mike Gorsky emailed me off list and gave me a solution - but I'll look 
up xargs. For anyone who's curious, here's the working script:

     find /Volumes/composing/\ \ \ Running\ Ads/ -type f -mtime 1 -exec 
cp -p {} /Volumes/Online/\PDF\'S/In/ \;

> Haven't used it in ages, so off hand I forget the syntax when using it 
> with find ... I think it is to simply break the find before the -exec 
> command and pipe it into xargs ...
>
> find ... -mtime 1 \; | xargs cp -p  /Volumes/Online/\PDF\'S/In/
>
> By the way -- if you plan on doing lots of stuff like this from the 
> command line, loose the apostrophe and make it simply "PDFs" or 
> "PDF-s"   ... ditto for spaces in file names -- use a dash or 
> underscore. It makes command line life much easier.

The only reason I didn't change them was the amount of other stuff that 
would have to be changed to accommodate that change. But if I wind up 
doing more of this, I'll make sure I have more input into file and 
folder names. :)

BTW, is there a particularly good book on shell scripting, or am I as 
well of searching the web?

Thanks,

Bert Knabe
Computer Technician
Lubbock Avalanche Journal
bert.knabe at lubbockonline.com
(806) 766-2158

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