Re: What Will This Return?

2007-03-29, 12:05(-07), Will:
[...]
NonEmptyFiles=$( find /usr/edit/*.phy -type f -size +0 )
[...]
So I can just use:?
for EachFile in $NonEmptyFiles
do
TimeStamp=`date "+%Y%m%d%H%M"`
cp $EachFile $EachFile$TimeStamp.dat
done
[...]

No, with $NonEmptyFiles unquoted above, you're asking the shell
to split the content of $NonEmptyFiles on spaces and to perform
filename generation, aka globbing (that is expansion of patterns
like /usr/edit/this?.phy).

While obviously you'd rather have $NonEmptyFiles split on
newlines only (and you need to be aware that it means that your
phy filenames can't contain newline characters), and filename
generation should not be done.

Also, if phy files may also be something else than regular files
(as your -type f suggests), then you should use -prune.

Also note that it will ommit the phy files whose name start with
".". It may also fail if the list of phy files is too big.

To sum up:

NonEmptyFiles=$(
find /usr/edit/*.phy -prune -type f -size +0 -print
)

IFS='
' # newline
set -f # disable filename generation

for EachFile in $NonEmptyFiles; do
TimeStamp=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)
cp -- "$EachFile" "$EachFile$TimeStamp.dat"
done

But I'd rather do:

find /usr/edit/. ! -name . -prune -type f -size +0 -exec sh -c '
TimeStamp=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)
exec cp -- "$1" "$1$TimeStamp.dat"
' inline {} \;

Which has none of the problems described above.

--
Stéphane
.