Bash script to rename subfolder to include name of parent folder

Question

Here's the current structure of my directory.

.
├── Show 1
│  ├── Season 1
│  └── Season 2
├── Show 2
  ├── Season 1
  └── Season 2

I want to rename the Season folders to include the name of the Show. The desired structure looks like this :

.
├── Show 1
│  ├── Show 1 - Season 1
│  └── Show 1 - Season 2
├── Show 2
  ├── Show 2 - Season 1
  └── Show 2 - Season 2 

Here's the script I wrote :

# Parse through all show folders.
for show in /Users/sanjeetsuhag/Desktop/* ; do
 # Check if it is a folder.
 if [ -d "$show" ]; then
 # Parse through all season folders.
 for season in $show/* ; do
 # Check if it is a folder.
 if [ -d "$season" ]; then 
 mv $season "$show/$(basename "$show") - $(basename "$season")" 
 fi 
 done
 fi
done

This is my first time scripting in Bash. Is there any thing I could improve ?

• chicks: The * expansion on your for lines will cause problems if you have a space in a file name or directory since the shell splits things on whitespace.

Answer 1

You should always double-quote variables that are used as filesystem paths. This is the same script but with variables correctly double-quoted:

# Parse through all show folders.
for show in /Users/sanjeetsuhag/Desktop/*; do
 # Check if it is a folder.
 if [ -d "$show" ]; then
 # Parse through all season folders.
 for season in "$show"/*; do
 # Check if it is a folder.
 if [ -d "$season" ]; then 
 mv "$season" "$show/$(basename "$show") - $(basename "$season")" 
 fi 
 done
 fi
done

If you change the globs to end with /, they will match only directories, and so you can skip the directory checks:

for show in /Users/sanjeetsuhag/Desktop/*/; do
 for season in "$show"/*/; do
 mv "$season" "$show/$(basename "$show") - $(basename "$season")" 
 done
done

You could further optimize this by using pattern substitution instead of basename:

for show in /Users/sanjeetsuhag/Desktop/*/; do
 for season in "$show"/*/; do
 show=${show%/}
 season=${season%/}
 mv "$season" "$show/${show##*/} - ${season##*/}"
 done
done

The ${show%/} is to shave off the trailing /, and the ${show##*/} is to delete everything until the last /.

Finally, instead of hardcoding the base path /Users/sanjeetsuhag/Desktop, the script would be more reusable if you make that a command line parameter of the script.

Answer 2

To avoid problems with spaces, as warned by @chicks, and most other hazardous characters as well, use double quotes often. The find utility also has a null-terminated line option -print0 that helps with space and newline problems.

Here's a revamped script to try. Liberally commented as this is your first time into Bash scripting. Hope it helps you learn, and works as intended for your project.

#!/bin/bash
# Convert this directory structure:
# .
# ├── Show 1
# │ ├── Season 1
# │ └── Season 2
# └── Show 2
# ├── Season 1
# └── Season 2
# to this structure:
# .
# ├── Show 1
# │ ├── Show 1 - Season 1
# │ └── Show 1 - Season 2
# └── Show 2
# ├── Show 2 - Season 1
# └── Show 2 - Season 2 
# or, optionally to this structure:
# .
# ├── Show 1
# │ ├── Show 1 - Season 1
# │ │ ├── Show 1 - Season 1 - Episode 1
# │ │ ├── Show 1 - Season 1 - Episode 2
# │ │ └── Show 1 - Season 1 - Episode 3
# │ └── Show 1 - Season 2
# │ ├── Show 1 - Season 1 - Episode 1
# │ ├── Show 1 - Season 2 - Episode 2
# │ └── Show 1 - Season 2 - Episode 3
# └── Show 2
# ├── Show 2 - Season 1
# │ ├── Show 2 - Season 1 - Episode 1
# │ ├── Show 2 - Season 1 - Episode 2
# │ └── Show 2 - Season 1 - Episode 3
# └── Show 2 - Season 2
# ├── Show 2 - Season 2 - Episode 1
# ├── Show 2 - Season 2 - Episode 2
# └── Show 2 - Season 2 - Episode 3
# Is safe for spaces, and most other shell characters. Notable exception
# is the "\" charcter which WILL NOT work in the directoy names anywhere.
# !@#$&*"'{}[](): are all safe, seemingly international chars are as well.
#
# TEST on a backup copy first!! YMMV
#
# Get the show directory names using find
# -maxdepth 1 : limit search to 1 level - the current directory
# return values are ./show
# -type d : only find directories
# -print0 : print the list as null-terminate strings
# pipe stdout to read 
# -d $'0円' : make read use null as the line delimiter
find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -print0 | while read -d $'0円' show;
do
 # Skip the . directory entry for the shows
 if [ ! "." = "$show" ];
 then
 # Get the season directory names using find as above
 # This time use the current show directory as the base directory
 # Return values are ./show/season
 find "$show" -maxdepth 1 -type d -print0 | while read -d $'0円' show_season;
 do
 # Strip of path from the show, in this case just ./
 show=$(basename "$show");
 # Skip the . directory entry for the seasons
 if [ ! "./$show" = "$show_season" ]
 then
 # Strip of the path from the season, in this case ./show/
 season_name=$(basename "$show_season");
 # Section to process the episodes in each season directory under the same name expansion scheme
 # Simply remove the comment marks in the first column, leave those that are deeper in.
 # Get the episode file names using the above logic again
 # This time use the current season directory as the base directory
 # Return values are ./show/season/episode
# find "$show_season" -maxdepth 1 -type f -print0 | while read -d $'0円' show_season_episode;
# do
# if [ ! "$show_season" = "$show_season_episode" ]
# then
# # Strip of the path from the episode, in this case ./show/season/
# episode_name=$(basename "$show_season_episode");
# # Rename the episode, the season directory has NOT been renamed yet!
# mv "$show_season_episode" "$show_season/$show - $season_name - $episode_name";
# fi
# done
 mv "$show_season" "$show/$show - $season_name";
 fi
 done
 fi
done