Unix Tip: MOVING FILES AROUND

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Unix Tip 3216 - November 26, 2009

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MOVING FILES AROUND

Here is another way to move files around.

Sometimes you find yourself wanting to move a bunch of files into a new directory that is to be created in the current working directory.

Rather than using a temporary directory, or grep and variable substitution; use a subshell:

$ ( \ls; echo dir; mkdir dir ) | xargs mv

The trick is in using a subshell to run a number of commands _before_ the output is piped to xargs. This idiom is also useful for plenty of other applications.

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