Bdtyktl

I have this batchfile that I use in Windows that I would like to translate into a Linux script. Could anyone help with that? Here is the script and the attempt at a Linux version. I did not write this, someone helped me.

The purpose is to run a python command "manual.py" which converts any file that is not an MP4 into an MP4 with FFmpeg. I have it running as a scheduled task in Windows against a mapped Linux share; however, I would rather just have the script run on the Linux box. 
My Linux scripting skills are, well, non-existent.

This works

@echo off

setlocal enableDelayedExpansion

Set Location="z:movies"



Set PatternName=".*.mp4 .*srt"



Set Transcoder="c:sysinternalsmp4auto"



for /f "delims=" %%F in ('dir %Location% /s /b /a-d ^| findstr /v /i /e /r %PatternName%') do (%Transcoder%manual.py -i "%%F" -a

)

This does not.

!#/bin/sh



Location="/TV Shows/*/*"

Pattern="*.mp4"

Transcode = /Mp4auto/manual.py



for Convert in (find $Location -type f ( -iname "*.*" ! -iname $Pattern ))

do



$Transcode -i $Convert -a

done

What do I need to do to get this working?

There are several issues:

• The first two characters of a shell script should be #!, not !#.

Assuming that you have elected to use a POSIX-type shell
(which is a good choice):

• When you assign to a variable,
  there must be no space before or after the =.


• When you use (refer to) a variable,
  you should almost always put it into quotes. 
  (What we often say is that you should always quote shell variables
  unless you have a good reason not to,
  and you’re sure you know what you’re doing.)


• You are running the find command,
  and taking its output and using it as part of a larger command. 
  You put the find command into parentheses. 
  You need to put it into $(…).


• 
  

  But this is a bad way to do that,
  and will fail if any pathnames contain space(s). 
  And so it will blow sky-high, because all your pathnames
  will contain space(s), because your directory name is "/TV Shows".

  
  
  

  I’ll get back to this.

  
  


• The first argument to find should generally be the name of a directory. 
  This is a gross oversimplification — there are lots of variations —
  but the point is that you should be giving find
  an argument of "/TV Shows". 
  You don’t need to specify "/TV Shows/*/*";
  find will find all files under the "/TV Shows" directory.


• If you want to look at only two levels of directories, say so.

Other notes:

• Your BAT file uses the .*srt pattern. 
  But you have not explained the significance of this,
  nor made any attempt to translate it into your shell script.


• 
  

  You use -iname "*.*" in your find command in your shell script. 
  This matches all files that have a . in their names. 
  (This character is known as “period”, “full stop” and “dot”.) 
  Not all Unix files have a period in their name,
  so this is not the same as matching all files. 
  This is the right thing to do
  if you want to exclude files that don’t have a dot in their names. 
  I point this out because

  
  
  
  
  
  • People transitioning from Windows
    are accustomed to thinking that *.* means all files.
  
  
  • People new to Unix (and find, in particular)
    sometimes believe that they need to say -name "*" or something similar
    to get all files, and then start specifying exclusions. 
    That’s not needed; find finds all files by default.
  
  
  • You didn’t specify a requirement
    to exclude files that don’t have a dot in their names.
  
  
  
  


• The script processes all files that have a dot in their name
  and don’t end with .mp4. 
  This could potentially include .py files, .txt files, and whatever. 
  It’s probably safer to search for the types of files
  that can be converted to MP4.

So, if you’re willing to rename your directory to TV_Shows,
and you can guarantee that none of your file names contain space,
then this should get you started:

#!/bin/sh



Location="/TV_Shows"

Pattern="*.mp4"

Transcode=/Mp4auto/manual.py



for Convert in $(find "$Location" -type f ( -iname "*.*" ! -iname "$Pattern" ))

do

    "$Transcode" -i "$Convert" -a

done

A better approach, which handles pathnames containing spaces, is to use find’s ability to run a command on each file that it finds:

#!/bin/sh



Location="/TV Shows"

Pattern="*.mp4"

Transcode=/Mp4auto/manual.py



find "$Location" -type f ( -iname "*.*" ! -iname "$Pattern" ) -exec "$Transcode" -i {} -a ';'

You can split that long command into two lines with a (backslash):

find "$Location" -type f ( -iname "*.*" ! -iname "$Pattern" ) 

                        -exec "$Transcode" -i {} -a ';'