[opensuse] Another Bash scripting question

17 May 2008

      Hi all.

I have a few directories containing wav files that have been ripped from CDs 
and I'm trying to write a script to invoke sox to convert them to mp3 format.

The filenames have whitespaces and hyphens in them e.g. 'artist - 01 - title 
with many words.wav'. I tried the following script but I'm obviously doing 
something wrong...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash

for file in `find * -print0 | xargs --null`

        do {
                INFILE=$file
                OUTFILE=${file/%wav/mp3}
                echo "$OUTFILE"

#               if [ ! -e "$file" ]
#               then
#                       echo "$file does not exist."; echo

#               else

#                       sox "$file" "$OUTFILE"

#               fi

#               if [ $? -eq 0 ]
#               then
#                       rm -f "$file"
#               fi
                }
        done

exit 0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In its current form each word of each filename is treated separately i.e. 
xargs --null appears to have no effect at all - it is interpreting whitespace 
as a delimiter.

If I modify the first line as follows:

for file in "`find * -print0 | xargs --null`"

or 

for file in "$(find * -print0 | xargs --null)"

then I get the entire directory listing (i.e. all the filenames) concatenated 
into a single parameter with only the last file extension replaced.

What have I missed here? I'm assuming it is something to do with the pipe or 
redirection via xargs that is not working as expected. 

BTW, I also tried this:

for file in $(xargs --null -- < `find * -print0`)

but then I get an "ambiguous redirect" error.

Using this:

for file in `xargs --null -- < `find * -print0``

gives the following errors:
command substitution: line 26: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
command substitution: line 26: `xargs --null -- < '

but then produces the output I'm expecting (i.e. a list of the output file 
names (keeping in mind the actual processing part of the script is currently 
commented out) with the exception that "find" is the first entry in the list 
and "-print0" is the last entry in the list; somehow the variable $OUTFILE 
appears to be getting the values "find" and "-print0" at the beginning and 
end of the loop.

I seem to be just going around in circles here. Any suggestions will be 
greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
-- 
===================================================
Rodney Baker VK5ZTV
rodney.baker@iinet.net.au
=================================================== 

I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it.
		-- Edgar Allan Poe