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Moha the almighty camel
Asked: 2015-05-18 12:32:46 +0800 CST

Terminal: Avoid repeating directory multiples times to reach files within

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I have two files file1.txt , flie2.txt in a directory X. I want to copy those files to my current working directory which is far away from the directory X.

so I end up with a command like:

cp ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file1.txt ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file2.txt .

Is there anyway to use the directory path once for both file, some kind of a shortcut ?
I am sure there is, Ubuntu never failed my laziness :D

command-line

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Use [1-2] to indicate the files, this uses bash's range expansion feature :

    cp ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file[1-2].txt .

    Here the range [1-2] will expand so file[1-2].txt will expand to file1.txt and file2.txt.

    Note that if you have multiple files like this with various number of numeric digits among their names :

    file1.txt file12.txt file980.txt file0.txt file23.txt

    In this case use the extglob feature of bash to enable extended pattern matching:

    $ shopt -s extglob

$ cp ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file+([0-9]).txt .

    The extglob pattern +([0-9]) will match one or more digits between file and .txt in the file names.

    Also note that it does not depend on any prefix or suffix, for example if you have files having names:

    1 02 043 908

    These can be matched (and copied) too by :

    $ cp ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/+([0-9]) .

    Check man bash to get more idea on this.

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  2. I would use brace expansion for this kind of thing

    cp -t ./ ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file{1..5}.txt

cp -t ./ ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/{xx.x,yy.y}
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  3. I'm using History Expansion with Word Designators a lot. !$ will designate the last argument of the preceding command.

    In most cases I take a look into that folder with ls first before coping.

    $ ls ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir
file1.txt    file2.txt
$ cp !$/file1.txt !$/file2.txt .
cp ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file1.txt ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file2.txt .

    As you can see bash automatically replaced !$ with the last argument of the preceding command.

    You can even use parts of that argument. !$:h (h for head) would designate the dirname of the last argument. !$:t (t for tail) would designate the basename of the last argument.

    So, if you've read the file before with less you would do

    $ less ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file1.txt
$ cp !$ !$:h/file2.txt .
cp ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file1.txt ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file2.txt .
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  4. Question asked can be solved by using the following command too.

    cp ~/Desktop/dir/dir/dir/dir/file*.txt .

    it will copy any files with the naming style file(something in between).txt

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