From: Rob Biedenharn <Rob@...>
Date: 2007-09-28T22:17:15+09:00
Subject: Re: Recursing through directories

On Sep 28, 2007, at 5:04 AM, Gabriel Dragffy wrote:
> On 27 Sep 2007, at 16:35, Rob Biedenharn wrote:
>> If you want to rename files having names that meet some pattern,  
>> why don't you start with print the names like this (files having  
>> "foo" somewhere in their name):
>>
>> Dir['**/*'].each {|f| puts f if f =~ /foo/ }
>>
>> but beware that Dir['**/*'] is going to plow through the directory  
>> structure and make an array (a big one) of all the file names  
>> before the block gets to see any of those names.
>>
>> Perhaps you'd get some better answers if you post what you're  
>> trying to accomplish, the attempt you've made (or what you think  
>> should work), and the actual results you see.
>>
>> Also, note that my example starts from the current directory  
>> (which was ~/ in my case).  It's always better to get a script  
>> like yours working on a small bit of known data (and perhaps be  
>> non-destructive) before turning it loose on your entire disk.  (In  
>> my case, it found many files that were throwaway "foo" files, but  
>> also many with "foot", "footnote", "food", and "footer" that were  
>> clearly not throwaway files.)
>
> Hi Rob
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> What I am trying to achieve is replace the slashes (/) in file/ 
> directory names under a certain directory. So, for example, I want  
> to recursively rename offending files that are under /Volumes, but  
> I don't want them moved from their current directory... just  
> renamed. What's the best way to go about that?
>
> Regards
>
> Gabe

This doesn't make sense.  There aren't slashes in the name, those are  
separating directories along the path to the file.

/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/rab/code/ruby/quiz/081-Hash to OpenStruct/ 
another.yml
/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/rab/code/ruby/quiz/081-Hash to OpenStruct/ 
hash2ostruct.rb
/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/rab/code/ruby/quiz/081-Hash to OpenStruct/ 
openstruct.yml
/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/rab/code/ruby/quiz/081-Hash to OpenStruct/ 
recursive.yml

These files have some directories containing spaces in the name, but  
the name of each file is just the last part (another.yml,  
hash2ostruct.rb, openstruct.yml, recursive.yml).  If I go to my home  
directory and rename 'code' to be 'source', I haven't changed the  
names of the files, but I *have* changed the path needed to reach them.

If you really *do* have files with '/' in their names, chances are  
you need to use a low-level utility to recover from that mess.  If  
you're just seeing in the Mac OS X Finder that there are "slashes" in  
the name of a file, perhaps you're seeing an artifact of the Mac's  
filesystem.  If you open a Terminal, you'll see that there the file  
has a ':' in the place that Finder shows you '/'.

Perhaps you can find these files (like I said, see if you find them  
properly before to operate on them) with Ruby like this:
	ruby -e 'puts Dir["**/*:*"]'
But know that there are a great many files that *NEED* to contain ':'  
created by iChat, AddressBook, Safari, and others.  (You might not  
want to mess with anything under a Library directory ;-)

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn		http://agileconsultingllc.com
Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com