OT: Bash script help needed

[Craig Puchta]

On Fri, 2007-12-21 at 02:06 +1100, Owen Townend wrote: 
> Hey,
>   A little script like this would do what you want assuming the naming
> conventions as above.
> 
>   Go through it and make sure you understand what each part is doing and
> edit it for your needs before you try running it.
> 
>   If you need to get more complex with the base names and paths look
> into 'sed' and 'awk' instead of 'cut'.
>   http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html is a great sed tut.
> 
> #!/bin/sh
> #
> # Sort logs into folders.
> # example log name "rdb-001-001.txt"
> #
> 
> WORKINGDIR="/path/to/files"
> BASEPATH="/path/to/new/dir"
> 
> for i in `ls $WORKINGDIR`; do
>   basename=`echo $i | cut -c -7`
>   # test for an existing directory
>   if [ ! -d ${BASEPATH}/${basename} ]
>     # create the new dir if needed.
>     then mkdir -p ${BASEPATH}/${basename}
>   fi
> 
>   # now move the file(s)
>   mv ${WORKINGDIR}/${basename}* ${BASEPATH}/${basename}/
> 
> done
> 
> 
> Let me know what you think.
> This will need to be added to if your files aren't all in the same dir
> at the moment or if there are spaces or strange characters in the names.
> 
> cheers,
> Owen.

I changed:

WORKINGDIR="/path/to/files" 
BASEPATH="/path/to/new/dir"

to:

WORKINGDIR="/home/eldergod/ziso"
BASEPATH="/home/eldergod/ziso"

I kept getting "mv: cannot move `/home/eldergod/ziso/rdb-030' to a
subdirectory of itself, `/home/eldergod/ziso/rdb-030/rdb-030'
Although it seems to have worked. I also tried it with:

WORKINGDIR="/home/eldergod/ziso"
BASEPATH="/home/eldergod/ztest"

and mv said it couldn't stat the directory, but it also seemed to have
worked.
This script more or less confuses me, I guess I need a good "bash
scripting for dummies" book :)
I'll keep messing with it and thanks for the help, I'm going to try the
script that Nils sent now.