Re: grep or perl

Update: now uses -L (not -v) as that'll do the right thing (thanks to nite_man)

# use -r if you want to process recursively
grep -L 'N\+' your_directory | xargs cp --target-directory wherever
[download]

Or a not-quite-one-liner in perl

perl -MFile::Find::Rule -le 'print for find(file =>
grep => qr/(?!N\+)/, in => @ARGV)' sourcedir | xargs \
cp --target-directory wherever
[download]

They're untested and assume *nix-esque command-line tools (which should be fine since you're running linux) but that should get you started.
HTH

_________ broquaint

Comment on Re: grep or perl Select or Download Code

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Re: Re: grep or perl by Anonymous Monk on Jun 04, 2003 at 13:00 UTC
Many thanks for your suggestion and time. The grep --help command shows the following: `-v, --invert-match select non-matching lines` [download] I wish to copy files that do not contain NNNNNs. I am not doing it on a line by line basis. Also I don't understand what the program xargs does also xargs --help does not tell me much.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Re: grep or perl by broquaint (Abbot) on Jun 04, 2003 at 13:41 UTC
I wish to copy files that do not contain NNNNNs. Ah yes, sorry you'll want the `-L` switch as nite_man mentioned. That will output all the files that did not match the criteria. Also I don't understand what the program xargs does It's roughly equivalent to `perl -e 'exec "@ARGV " . join " ", <>'` [download] So execute the given program and provided parameters and then add anything read from the pipe as arguments. HTH `_________ broquaint`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Re: Re: grep or perl by revdiablo (Prior) on Jun 05, 2003 at 00:01 UTC
It's roughly equivalent to `perl -e 'exec "@ARGV " . join " ", <>'` So execute the given program and provided parameters and then add anything read from the pipe as arguments. This is true, but it might also be useful to note that `xargs` breaks the command line up into chunks small enough to fit on one command. For example, if you tried passing 40,000 filenames as one big long command line, it wouldn't work. Instead you could `echo` the 40,000 filenames into `xargs` (or, more realistically, pipe the output from `find` or `grep`), which will break them up accordingly. As a fun test, try the following: echo `find /usr -type f` vs `find /usr -type f \| xargs echo`	[reply] [d/l] [select]