Use grep to find content in files and move them if they match

user_17582 0
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I'm using grep to generate a list of files I need to move:

grep -L -r 'Subject: \[SPAM\]' .

How can I pass this list to the mv command and move the files somewhere else?

grep shell scripting linux
9 Answers

If you want to find and move files that do not match your pattern (move files that don't contain 'Subject \[SPAM\]' in this example) use:

grep -L -Z -r 'Subject: \[SPAM\]' . | xargs -0 -I{} mv {} DIR

The -Z means output with zeros (\0) after the filenames (so spaces are not used as delimeters).

xargs -0

means interpret \0 to be delimiters.

The -L means find files that do not match the pattern. Replace -L with -l if you want to move files that match your pattern.

Then

-I{} mv {} DIR

means replace {} with the filenames, so you get mv filenames DIR.

daveb_118580

This alternative works where xargs is not availabe:

grep -L -r 'Subject: \[SPAM\]' . | while read f; do mv "$f" out; done
Tobias_Kunze_60700

There are several ways but here is a slow but failsafe one :

IFS=$'\n'; # set the field separator to line break
for $mail in $(grep -L -r 'Subject: \[SPAM\]' .); do mv "$mail" your_dir; done;
IFS=' '; # restore FS
user_99510

You can pass the result to the next command by using grep ... | xargs mv {} destination

Check man xargs for more info.

user_167840
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