How do I create a directory for every file in a parent directory

Question

I have parent folder and inside this folder I have 4 files

ParentFolder
      File1.txt
      File2.txt
      File3.txt
      File4.txt

I wanted to create subfolders inside the parent folder and carry the name of the files then move every file inside the folder that carry it is name like:

ParentFolder
    File1          
      File1.txt
    File2          
      File2.txt
    File3          
      File3.txt
    File4          
      File4.txt

How can I do that in batch or tsch script? I tried this script:

#!/bin/bash
in=path_to_my_parentFolder
for i in $(cat ${in}/all.txt); do
cd ${in}/${i} 
ls > files.txt
for ii in $(cat files.txt); do
mkdir ${ii}
mv ${ii} ${in}/${i}/${ii} 
done     
done

Were this bash, one could easily try: 'for Q in *.txt;do Z="${Q%.txt}";mkdir "$Z" && mv "$Q" "$Z";done' but tsch? that awaits the last remaining living tsch guru — Theophrastus, Aug 03 '15 at 20:05

score 22 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

22

You're overcomplicating this. I don't understand what you're trying to do with all.txt. To enumerate the files in a directory, don't call ls: that's more complex and doesn't work reliably anyway. Use a wildcard pattern.

To strip the extension (.txt) at the end of the file name, use the suffix stripping feature of variable substitution. Always put double quotes around variable substitutions.

cd ParentFolder
for x in ./*.txt; do
  mkdir "${x%.*}" && mv "$x" "${x%.*}"
done

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

Community

1

answered Aug 04 '15 at 00:04

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

829,060

This was actually very useful for me to organize my investments and it's redemptions in each folder, many thanks. every question answered saves me time to not having to create the solution myself :D – lauksas Feb 15 '20 at 17:55
One minor detail: for "./*.txt" ${x%.*} will output "./File1", "./File2" etc. with leading "./". Use "*.txt" instead "./*.txt" to just get "File1", "File2" without leading "./" – Christoph Feb 06 '22 at 20:50
I have used and got empty folders lost all my movie files :(( Why have my files been deleted? (I had just two $ ) for x in ./.mkv; do mkdir "${x%.}" && mv "$x" "$${x%.*}" done – Shahram Shinshaawh Jul 05 '23 at 21:08

score 4 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 04 '15 at 12:47

4

Instead of loop you can use find

find ParentFolder/* -prune -type f -exec \
  sh -c 'mkdir -p "${0%.*}" && mv "$0" "${0%.*}"' {} \;

edited Aug 04 '15 at 12:47

Stéphane Chazelas

544,893

answered Aug 03 '15 at 20:43

Costas

14,916

1

Could you further elaborate the "${0%.*}" ? – T.m Chronos Aug 30 '19 at 10:43
1

@T.mChronos: It's called Parameter expansion. Here ${0%.}; for $0 removing beginning at the end (%) all () characters until a dot is reached (.). – teekkari Jan 06 '20 at 19:42

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 04 '15 at 12:47

0

Or you could really make it simple. Use basename, part of coreutils.

cd ParentFolder &&
for i in ./*.txt 
 do   
    d=$(basename "$i" .txt)   
    mkdir "$d" && mv "$i" "$d" 
 done

edited Aug 04 '15 at 12:47

Stéphane Chazelas

544,893

answered Aug 04 '15 at 12:36

Allen

101

How do I create a directory for every file in a parent directory

3 Answers3

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