{"id":3460,"date":"2017-04-02T13:47:46","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T08:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/?p=3460"},"modified":"2017-04-02T13:47:46","modified_gmt":"2017-04-02T08:17:46","slug":"solving-mv-argument-list-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/solving-mv-argument-list-long\/","title":{"rendered":"[ Solved -3 Answers] LINUX – Solving mv : Argument list too long"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have a folder with more than a million files that needs sorting, but we can’t really do anything because mv outputs this message all the time<\/p>\n

bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
bash: \/bin\/mv: Argument list too long<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
we using this command to move extension-less files:<\/p>\n
 
 bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
mv -- !(*.jpg|*.png|*.bmp) targetdir\/<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
    \n
  • xargs is the tool for the job. That, or find with -exec \u2026 {} +. These tools run a command several times, with as many arguments as can be passed in one go.<\/li>\n
  • Both methods are easier to carry out when the variable argument list is at the end, which isn’t the case here: the final argument to mv is the destination.<\/li>\n
  • With GNU utilities (i.e. on non-embedded Linux or Cygwin), the -t option to mv is useful, to pass the destination first.<\/li>\n
  • If the file names have no whitespace nor any of \\”‘, then you can simply provide the file names as input to xargs (the echo command is a bash built in, so it isn’t subject to the command line length limit):<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
     
     bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
    echo !(*.jpg|*.png|*.bmp) | xargs mv -t targetdir<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n[ad type=”banner”]\n
      \n
    • You can use the -0 option to xargs to use null-delimited input instead of the default quoted format.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
       
       bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
      printf '%s\\0' !(*.jpg|*.png|*.bmp) | xargs -0 mv -t targetdir<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
       <\/p>\n
        \n
      • Alternatively, you can generate the list of file names with find. To avoid recursing into subdirectories, use -type d -prune. Since no action is specified for the listed image files, only the other files are moved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
         
         bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
        find . -name . -o -type d -prune -o \\       -name '*.jpg' -o -name '*.png' -o -name '*.bmp' -o \\       -exec mv -t targetdir\/ {} +<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
          \n
        • If you don’t have GNU utilities, you can use an intermediate shell to get the arguments in the right order. This method works on all POSIX systems.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
           
           bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
          find . -name . -o -type d -prune -o \\       -name '*.jpg' -o -name '*.png' -o -name '*.bmp' -o \\       -exec sh -c 'mv "$@" "$0"' targetdir\/ {} +<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
            \n
          • In zsh, you can load the mv builtin:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
             
             bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
            setopt extended_globzmodload zsh\/filesmv -- ^*.(jpg|png|bmp) targetdir\/<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n[ad type=”banner”]\n
            or if you prefer to let <\/b>mv<\/b> and other names keep referring to the external commands:<\/b><\/p>\n
             
             bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
            setopt extended_globzmodload -Fm zsh\/files b:zf_\\*zf_mv -- ^*.(jpg|png|bmp) targetdir\/<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
            or with <\/b>ksh<\/b>-style globs:<\/b><\/p>\n
             
             bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
            setopt ksh_globzmodload -Fm zsh\/files b:zf_\\*zf_mv -- !(*.jpg|*.png|*.bmp) targetdir\/<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
            Alternatively, using <\/b>GNU mv <\/b>and <\/b>zargs<\/b>:<\/b><\/p>\n
             
             bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
            autoload -U zargssetopt extended_globzargs -- .\/^*.(jpg|png|bmp) -- mv -t targetdir\/<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
              \n
            • The operating system’s argument passing limit does not apply to expansions which happen within the shell interpreter.<\/li>\n
            • So in addition to using xargs or find, we can simply use a shell loop to break up the processing into individual mv commands:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
               
               bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
              for x in *; do case "$x" in *.jpg|*.png|*.bmp) ;; *) mv -- "$x" target ;; esac ; done<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n[ad type=”banner”]\n
                \n
              • This uses only POSIX Shell Command Language features and utilities. This one-liner is clearer with indentation, with unnecessary semicolons removed:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                 
                 bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
                for x in *; do  case "$x" in    *.jpg|*.png|*.bmp)        ;; # nothing    *) # catch-all case       mv -- "$x" target       ;;  esacdone<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
                  \n
                • A solution without a catch block using “$origin”\/!(*.jpg|*.png|*.bmp):<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                   
                   bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
                  for file in "$origin"\/!(*.jpg|*.png|*.bmp); do mv -- "$file" "$destination" ; done<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
                    \n
                  • For a multi-line script you can do the following (notice the ; before the done is dropped):<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                     
                     bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
                    for file in "$origin"\/!(*.jpg|*.png|*.bmp); do        # don't copy types *.jpg|*.png|*.bmp    mv -- "$file" "$destination" done <\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
                      \n
                    • To do a more generalized solution that moves all files, you can do the one-liner:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                       
                       bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
                      for file in "$origin"\/*; do mv -- "$file" "$destination" ; done<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n[ad type=”banner”]\n
                      Which looks like this if you do indentation:<\/p>\n
                       
                       bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
                      for file in "$origin"\/*; do    mv -- "$file" "$destination"done <\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
                        \n
                      • This takes every file in the origin and moves them one by one to the destination. The quotes around $file are necessary in case there are spaces or other special characters in the filenames.<\/li>\n
                      • Here is an example of this method that worked perfectly<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
                         
                         bash code<\/span> <\/div> 
                        for file in "\/Users\/william\/Pictures\/export_folder_111210\/"*.jpg; do    mv -- "$file" "\/Users\/william\/Desktop\/southland\/landingphotos\/";done<\/code><\/pre> <\/div>\n
                         <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
                         Solving mv : Argument list too long – Both methods are easier to carry out when the variable argument list is at the end<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1699],"tags":[6355,6354,6356,6362,6360,6357,6365,6359,6361,6363,6364,6358],"class_list":["post-3460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux","tag-argument-list-too-long-ls","tag-argument-list-too-long-mv","tag-argument-list-too-long-python","tag-arugument-list-too-long-on-linux-system-python","tag-commonerrormessagesargumentlisttoolong","tag-cp-argument-list-too-long","tag-how-to-set-ulimit-values-red-hat-customer-portal","tag-move-a-large-number-of-files-in-linux","tag-resolved-binrm-argument-list-too-long-error","tag-ulimit-how-do-i-increase-the-open-files-limit-for-a-non-root-user","tag-ulimit-what-is-the-max-opened-files-limitation-on-linux","tag-unable-to-delete-file-argument-list-too-long"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wikitechy.com\/technology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}