How to find all files matching (or not matching) a specific pattern in a folder?

Question

How do I find all files in a folder and its subfolders terminated with 3 digits and move them to a new place while keeping the directory structure?

Alternatively, how can I find all files whose names don't end with three digits?

Answer 1

Much cleaner solution, based on an answer linked by @don_crissti. (Rsync filter: copying one pattern only)

rsync -av --remove-source-files --include='*[0-9][0-9][0-9]' --include='*/' --exclude '*' /tmp/oldstruct/ /tmp/newstruct/

And the negation:

rsync -av --remove-source-files --exclude='*[0-9][0-9][0-9]' /tmp/oldstruct /tmp/newstruct/

---

Original answer:

This should do it. It will find any file in the structure you cd into ending in 3 digits, create a destination folder in the /tmp/newstruct, and move the file.

cd /tmp/oldstruct
find ./ -type f -regextype posix-basic -regex '.*[0-9]\\{3\\}' | 
  while read i; do 
    dest=/tmp/newstruct/$(dirname $i)
    mkdir -vp $dest
    mv -v $i $dest
  done

I'd recommend prepending the mkdir and mv with echo before you actually run it, just to ensure it does what you're expecting.

To negate the 3 digits, simply place do ! -regex instead.

---

Here is a simpler method which relies upon rsync. However, it does call rsync for every file it finds, so definitely not very efficient.

find ./ -type f -regextype posix-basic -regex '.*[0-9]\{3\}' --exec rsync -av --remove-source-files --relative {} /tmp/newstruct

Answer 2

You can do this with bash :

## Make ** match all files and 0 or more dirs and subdirs
shopt globstar
## Iterate over all files and directories
for f in **; do 
    ## Get the name of the parent directory of the 
    ## current file/directory
    dir=$(dirname "$f"); 
    ## If this file/dir ends with 3 digits and is a file
    if [[ $f =~ [0-9]{3} ]] && [ -f "$f" ]; then 
        ## Create the target directory
        mkdir -p targetdir1/"$dir"
        ## Move the file
        mv "$f" targetdir1/"$f" 
    else 
        ## If this is a file but doesn't end with 3 digits
        [ -f "$f" ] && 
        ## Make the target dir
        mkdir -p targetdir2/"$dir" &&
        ## Move the file
        mv "$f" targetdir2/"$f" 
    fi 
done