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Accepted
Abdennour TOUMI
Asked: 2014-08-13 01:22:34 +0800 CST

Move directory to Grandpa directory and delete the parent directory

  • 772

Sometimes, we note that we have unused nested containers (directories) .

For example :

mkdir -p ~/grandpa/pa;

And pa directory is the only file existed on grandpa.

Hence, all files of pa should be moved to grandpa, then pa will be deleted.

My question is there is a built-in command line do such a mission:

i.e: 

orphan  ~/grandpa/pa/*

or 

fatherless ~/grandpa/pa/*
command-line

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You can just use standard bash commands - mv, rm, etc - for example

    mv ~/grandpa/pa/* ~/grandpa/ && rmdir ~/grandpa/pa/

    This:

    • uses mv to move the files in ~/grandpa/pa/* to ~/grandpa/
    • uses && so the rmdir command only if the mv exits successfully - ; could be used..
    • uses rmdir to remove the pa directory if it is empty.

    N.B. tested on the directory structure - before:

    $ tree ~/grandpa/
./grandpa/
|-- anotherfile.txt
`-- pa
    |-- child
    |   `-- file3.txt
    |-- file1.txt
    `-- file2.txt

2 directories, 4 files

    after:

    $ tree ~/grandpa/
./grandpa/
|-- anotherfile.txt
|-- child
|   `-- file3.txt
|-- file1.txt
`-- file2.txt

1 directory, 4 files
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