Move all files and directories to destination directory

Question

I have directory structure:

~/MYDIR/
  /DESTINATIONDIR/
  /DIR1/
  /DIR2/
  /file1
  /file2

I need to move DIR1, DIR2,file1,file2 to DESTINATIONDIR

What is most elegant and optimal way to do this from terminal?

UPD: asume that we have much more files and dirs with different names

Possible duplicate of [Moving folder and subfolder to another path](http://askubuntu.com/questions/210168/moving-folder-and-subfolder-to-another-path) — Dimitri Podborski, Jan 14 '16 at 15:35

score 8 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

There are three ways I'd consider doing this.

Hacky and error-fuelled, "MOVE ALL THE THINGS"

mv ~/MYDIR/* ~/MYDIR/DESTINATIONDIR

This will try to move the destination into itself and will explode:

mv: cannot move ‘~/MYDIR/DESTINATIONDIR’ to a subdirectory of itself, ‘~/MYDIR/DESTINATIONDIR/DESTINATIONDIR’

But it will move [almost] everything else. So it works but it's a bit of a mess. If you need to match hidden files, run shopt -s dotglob beforehand and it'll work.

Moving a list of files manually

Given the short list of things, we can quite easily just list them out with a little bash expansion:

 mv ~/MYDIR/{DIR{1,2},file{1,2}} ~/MYDIR/DESTINATIONDIR

If you need hidden files with this method, just include them in the list.

If this list is coming from something else (eg find) it can be tough to ensure the destination is the last argument. You can move the destination to the front with the -t argument. This is a horrible example but highlights when you need it:

find ~/MYDIR/ -maxdepth 1 ! -name DESTINATIONDIR -exec mv -t ~/MYDIR/DESTINATIONDIR {} +

Inverse globbing with `shopt`, elegance defined.

So let's strike the balance between manually listing and wildcards. By turning on the extended globbing features in Bash, we can select [almost] everything but the destination directory.

shopt -s extglob
mv ~/MYDIR/!(DESTINATIONDIR) ~/MYDIR/DESTINATIONDIR

If you need to match hidden files, run shopt -s dotglob beforehand and it'll work.

Side note, I've always had `extglob` turned on by default in interactive shells since Trusty, so unless the command is to be used in a script simply `mv -t ~/MYDIR/DESTINATIONDIR ~/MYDIR/!(DESTINATIONDIR)` will likely avail. — kos, Jan 14 '16 at 15:02
do I really need to select everything but the destination dir? Can't I just do `mv * destination` even if destination is in the same directory. mv will not move the destination dir and will just inform you that this is not possible. right? — Dimitri Podborski, Jan 14 '16 at 15:10
@vico There's another shell option called `dotglob` for that. I've added notes against the various methods. — Oli, Jan 14 '16 at 15:19

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 14 '16 at 14:54

0

what about:

cd ~/MYDIR
mv DIR* file* DESTINATIONDIR

answered Jan 14 '16 at 14:54

Dimitri Podborski

2,505
16
22

Move all files and directories to destination directory

2 Answers2

Hacky and error-fuelled, "MOVE ALL THE THINGS"

Moving a list of files manually

Inverse globbing with shopt, elegance defined.

Inverse globbing with `shopt`, elegance defined.