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Randomly copy certain amount of certain file type from one directory into another

.everyoneloves__top-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__mid-leaderboard:empty,.everyoneloves__bot-mid-leaderboard:empty margin-bottom:0;

3

2

Sometimes I have a folder full of jpg's and I need to randomly choose 8 or so of them. How could I automate this so my account randomly chooses 8 jpg's from the folder and copies them to another destination?

My question is simple really, instead of using cp and giving it a file name then destination file name, I want to build a script that randomly chooses 8 of the .jpgs in the folder, and copies those to another folder.

command-line cp random

share|improve this question

edited Jul 22 '15 at 20:20

chaos

36.2k978120

asked Jul 22 '15 at 19:42

David ProvostDavid Provost

1612

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  you can use a combination of crontab and mv.
  
  – vfbsilva
  Jul 22 '15 at 19:55
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

3

2

Sometimes I have a folder full of jpg's and I need to randomly choose 8 or so of them. How could I automate this so my account randomly chooses 8 jpg's from the folder and copies them to another destination?

My question is simple really, instead of using cp and giving it a file name then destination file name, I want to build a script that randomly chooses 8 of the .jpgs in the folder, and copies those to another folder.

command-line cp random

share|improve this question

edited Jul 22 '15 at 20:20

chaos

36.2k978120

asked Jul 22 '15 at 19:42

David ProvostDavid Provost

1612

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  you can use a combination of crontab and mv.
  
  – vfbsilva
  Jul 22 '15 at 19:55
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

Sometimes I have a folder full of jpg's and I need to randomly choose 8 or so of them. How could I automate this so my account randomly chooses 8 jpg's from the folder and copies them to another destination?

My question is simple really, instead of using cp and giving it a file name then destination file name, I want to build a script that randomly chooses 8 of the .jpgs in the folder, and copies those to another folder.

command-line cp random

share|improve this question

edited Jul 22 '15 at 20:20

chaos

36.2k978120

asked Jul 22 '15 at 19:42

David ProvostDavid Provost

1612

share|improve this question

edited Jul 22 '15 at 20:20

chaos

36.2k978120

asked Jul 22 '15 at 19:42

David ProvostDavid Provost

1612

share|improve this question

edited Jul 22 '15 at 20:20

chaos

36.2k978120

asked Jul 22 '15 at 19:42

David ProvostDavid Provost

1612

edited Jul 22 '15 at 20:20

chaos

36.2k978120

edited Jul 22 '15 at 20:20

chaos

36.2k978120

asked Jul 22 '15 at 19:42

David ProvostDavid Provost

1612

asked Jul 22 '15 at 19:42

David ProvostDavid Provost

1612

3 Answers
3

active

oldest

votes

12

You could use shuf:

shuf -zn8 -e *.jpg | xargs -0 cp -vt target/

• 
  shuf shuffles the list of *.jpg files in the current directory.


• 
  -z is to zero-terminate each line, so that files with special characters are treated correctly.


• 
  -n8 exits shuf after 8 files.


• 
  xargs -0 reads the input delimited by a null character (from shuf -z) and runs cp.


• 
  -v is to print every copy verbosely.


• 
  -t is to specify the target directory.

share|improve this answer

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:19

chaoschaos

36.2k978120

add a comment | 

1

You could retrieve files in this way:

files=(/tmp/*.jpg)
n=$#files[@]
file_to_retrieve="$files[RANDOM % n]"
cp $file_to_retrieve <destination>

make a loop 8 times.

share|improve this answer

edited Apr 6 at 0:23

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:13

TiburonTiburon

112

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  So essentially rather than an answer you provide a list of variable names.
  
  – gented
  Dec 18 '18 at 22:35
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

1

The best answer absolutely didn't worked for me, because -e *.jpg doesn't actually look into the working directory. It's just an expression. So shuf doesn't shuffle anything...

I found the following improvement based on what I learned in that post.

find /some/dir/ -type f -name "*.jpg" -print0 | xargs -0 shuf -e -n 8 -z | xargs -0 cp -vt /target/dir/

share|improve this answer

edited 10 hours ago

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Dec 17 '17 at 13:24

HalavusHalavus

111

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  The -e *.jpg expects a set of matching files in the current directory. If there are no matches it will (usually) return the single literal *.jpg to shuf, which then has only one element to consider.
  
  – roaima
  Dec 17 '17 at 13:58
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

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12

You could use shuf:

shuf -zn8 -e *.jpg | xargs -0 cp -vt target/

• 
  shuf shuffles the list of *.jpg files in the current directory.


• 
  -z is to zero-terminate each line, so that files with special characters are treated correctly.


• 
  -n8 exits shuf after 8 files.


• 
  xargs -0 reads the input delimited by a null character (from shuf -z) and runs cp.


• 
  -v is to print every copy verbosely.


• 
  -t is to specify the target directory.

share|improve this answer

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:19

chaoschaos

36.2k978120

add a comment | 

12

You could use shuf:

shuf -zn8 -e *.jpg | xargs -0 cp -vt target/

• 
  shuf shuffles the list of *.jpg files in the current directory.


• 
  -z is to zero-terminate each line, so that files with special characters are treated correctly.


• 
  -n8 exits shuf after 8 files.


• 
  xargs -0 reads the input delimited by a null character (from shuf -z) and runs cp.


• 
  -v is to print every copy verbosely.


• 
  -t is to specify the target directory.

share|improve this answer

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:19

chaoschaos

36.2k978120

add a comment | 

You could use shuf:

shuf -zn8 -e *.jpg | xargs -0 cp -vt target/

• 
  shuf shuffles the list of *.jpg files in the current directory.


• 
  -z is to zero-terminate each line, so that files with special characters are treated correctly.


• 
  -n8 exits shuf after 8 files.


• 
  xargs -0 reads the input delimited by a null character (from shuf -z) and runs cp.


• 
  -v is to print every copy verbosely.


• 
  -t is to specify the target directory.

share|improve this answer

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:19

chaoschaos

36.2k978120

shuf -zn8 -e *.jpg | xargs -0 cp -vt target/

share|improve this answer

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:19

chaoschaos

36.2k978120

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:19

chaoschaos

36.2k978120

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:19

chaoschaos

36.2k978120

1

You could retrieve files in this way:

files=(/tmp/*.jpg)
n=$#files[@]
file_to_retrieve="$files[RANDOM % n]"
cp $file_to_retrieve <destination>

make a loop 8 times.

share|improve this answer

edited Apr 6 at 0:23

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:13

TiburonTiburon

112

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  So essentially rather than an answer you provide a list of variable names.
  
  – gented
  Dec 18 '18 at 22:35
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

1

You could retrieve files in this way:

files=(/tmp/*.jpg)
n=$#files[@]
file_to_retrieve="$files[RANDOM % n]"
cp $file_to_retrieve <destination>

make a loop 8 times.

share|improve this answer

edited Apr 6 at 0:23

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:13

TiburonTiburon

112

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  So essentially rather than an answer you provide a list of variable names.
  
  – gented
  Dec 18 '18 at 22:35
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

You could retrieve files in this way:

files=(/tmp/*.jpg)
n=$#files[@]
file_to_retrieve="$files[RANDOM % n]"
cp $file_to_retrieve <destination>

make a loop 8 times.

share|improve this answer

edited Apr 6 at 0:23

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:13

TiburonTiburon

112

files=(/tmp/*.jpg)
n=$#files[@]
file_to_retrieve="$files[RANDOM % n]"
cp $file_to_retrieve <destination>

share|improve this answer

edited Apr 6 at 0:23

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:13

TiburonTiburon

112

edited Apr 6 at 0:23

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

edited Apr 6 at 0:23

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:13

TiburonTiburon

112

answered Jul 22 '15 at 20:13

TiburonTiburon

112

1

The best answer absolutely didn't worked for me, because -e *.jpg doesn't actually look into the working directory. It's just an expression. So shuf doesn't shuffle anything...

I found the following improvement based on what I learned in that post.

find /some/dir/ -type f -name "*.jpg" -print0 | xargs -0 shuf -e -n 8 -z | xargs -0 cp -vt /target/dir/

share|improve this answer

edited 10 hours ago

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Dec 17 '17 at 13:24

HalavusHalavus

111

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  The -e *.jpg expects a set of matching files in the current directory. If there are no matches it will (usually) return the single literal *.jpg to shuf, which then has only one element to consider.
  
  – roaima
  Dec 17 '17 at 13:58
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

1

The best answer absolutely didn't worked for me, because -e *.jpg doesn't actually look into the working directory. It's just an expression. So shuf doesn't shuffle anything...

I found the following improvement based on what I learned in that post.

find /some/dir/ -type f -name "*.jpg" -print0 | xargs -0 shuf -e -n 8 -z | xargs -0 cp -vt /target/dir/

share|improve this answer

edited 10 hours ago

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Dec 17 '17 at 13:24

HalavusHalavus

111

• 
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  The -e *.jpg expects a set of matching files in the current directory. If there are no matches it will (usually) return the single literal *.jpg to shuf, which then has only one element to consider.
  
  – roaima
  Dec 17 '17 at 13:58
  

  
  
  
  

add a comment | 

The best answer absolutely didn't worked for me, because -e *.jpg doesn't actually look into the working directory. It's just an expression. So shuf doesn't shuffle anything...

I found the following improvement based on what I learned in that post.

find /some/dir/ -type f -name "*.jpg" -print0 | xargs -0 shuf -e -n 8 -z | xargs -0 cp -vt /target/dir/

share|improve this answer

edited 10 hours ago

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Dec 17 '17 at 13:24

HalavusHalavus

111

find /some/dir/ -type f -name "*.jpg" -print0 | xargs -0 shuf -e -n 8 -z | xargs -0 cp -vt /target/dir/

share|improve this answer

edited 10 hours ago

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Dec 17 '17 at 13:24

HalavusHalavus

111

edited 10 hours ago

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

edited 10 hours ago

Rui F Ribeiro

42.1k1484142

answered Dec 17 '17 at 13:24

HalavusHalavus

111

answered Dec 17 '17 at 13:24

HalavusHalavus

111