[SOLVED] Mv command giving unexpected fault

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Tyberion
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[SOLVED] Mv control giving unexpected fault

Hey all, maybe yous can help me with something I'grand scratching my head about. I am trying to employ wildcards to move a group of files and am getting this result:

Code: Select all

                  $ mv *unsorted* Unsorted/ mv: invalid selection -- 'Due north' Try 'mv --help' for more information.

mv --assist confirms there is no 'N' option, which doesn't assistance, and a Google search confirms my syntax "should" be working.

Any idea what'due south up? Thanks!

Last edited by Tyberion on Tue Feb 20, 2018 seven:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

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austin.texas
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Re: Mv control giving unexpected error

Post by austin.texas »

Works for me with no error... :shock:

Code: Select all

                  dan@skynet1 ~/Documents $ mv *test* ~/Desktop/ dan@skynet1 ~/Documents $ cd .. dan@skynet1 ~ $ ls Desktop reservations.html  test1.txt  test2.txt

I don't know what could cause the error.

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Mute Ant
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Re: Mv command giving unexpected error

Mail service by Mute Pismire »

I bet one of the names that matches... *unsorted* ...starts with... -Northward ...and the mv control sees it equally options in the middle of the list. Avoiding names that start with '-' becomes a habit. They invented -- for this instance, to signal NoMoreOptions...

bear upon -Nobbly ### Fails with touch: invalid selection -- 'N'

touch -- -Nobbly ### OK... except now you lot have a file name that starts with a '-'

rm -Nobbly ### Fails with rm: invalid option -- 'N'

rm -- -Nobbly ### OK

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rene
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Re: Mv command giving unexpected error

Post by rene »

Mute Ant wrote: ↑

Mon February 19, 2018 11:59 am

I bet 1 of the names that matches... *unsorted* ...starts with... -N

And to affiche, note that this is as such fundamentally a consequence of the shell performing wildcard expansion in UNIX: i.e., not mv being daft enough to expand a wildcard into what it itself thinks is an pick, but the shell simply feeding the complete expansion to mv, -North and all.

jglen490
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Re: Mv command giving unexpected fault

Post by jglen490 »

Does the directory - Unsorted/ - be in your Path?

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Flemur
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Re: Mv command giving unexpected error

Mail by Flemur »

Tyberion wrote: ↑

Mon February 19, 2018 8:31 am

mv *unsorted* Unsorted/

Please edit your original postal service title to include [SOLVED] if/when it is solved!
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Tyberion
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Re: Mv command giving unexpected fault

Mail by Tyberion »

Was happy to see and then many helpful replies after getting dwelling from work. Cheers so much everyone!

After I saw the suggestion that one of the file names might start with '-Due north' I searched (there are effectually 2000 files) and sure enough there were really a handful of them that had that. The specific one causing the trouble started with '-Nebula_Awards...' and so, there ya take it! Afterwards quickly renaming the offenders, a second later and all of my unsorted files were in the unsorted directory.

And so lesson learned, Bash will freak out if a file proper noun looks like a command argument. Thanks again everyone for your help! :)

Mute Ant
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Re: Mv command giving unexpected error

Postal service by Mute Emmet »

That was just a practice. You lot await until you become file names that end with spaces...
touch "weasel.mp3" "weasel.mp3 " "weasel.mp3 " ; ls -one
weasel.mp3
weasel.mp3
weasel.mp3
...argh argh argh.

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Termy
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Re: Mv command giving unexpected error

Post past Termy »

Mute Ant wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 19, 2018 7:xv pm

That was merely a practice. You wait until you get file names that end with spaces...

Lol Aye, I've come across that a couple of times; very weird.

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