Move certain files from specific subdirectories into a new directory

Question

How do I move only certain files (not all files), from specific subdirectories (not all subdirectories), into a new directory?

The files that need to be moved have been listed in a CSV file and are about 85,000 in number. They have been mentioned with their absolute paths. All the files possess the same extension, i.e., .java. The number of specific subdirectories is about 13,000.

Is there a Python script (preferred) or a Shell script to do this?

N.B: The forums that I searched on returned solutions on how to move all files from within a single subdirectory into a new directory. They are mentioned below:

1. https://www.daniweb.com/programming/software-development/threads/473187/copymove-all-sub-directories-from-a-folder-to-another-folder-using-python

2. http://pythoncentral.io/how-to-copy-a-file-in-python-with-shutil/

3. Filter directory when using shutil.copytree?

4. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/207375/copy-certain-files-from-specified-subdirectories-into-a-separate-subdirectory

Answer 1

Something like this might work for you:

import os
import csv

def move_file(old_file_path, new_directory):
    if not os.path.isdir(new_directory):
        os.mkdir(new_directory)
    base_name = os.path.basename(old_file_path)
    new_file_path = os.path.join(new_directory, base_name)
    os.rename(old_file_path, new_file_path)

def parse_csv_file(csv_path):
    csv_file = open(csv_path)
    csv_reader = csv.reader(csv_file, delimiter=',', quotechar='"')
    paths = list(csv_reader)
    csv_file.close()
    return paths

if __name__ == '__main__':
    old_file_paths = parse_csv_file('your_csv_path')
    for old_file_path in old_file_paths:
        move_file(old_file_path, 'your_new_directory')

This assumes that your CSV file only contains paths, delimited by commas, and all of those files exist.

Answer 2

Assuming that your CSV file looks like this:

George,/home/geo/mtvernon.java,Betsy
Abe,/home/honest/gettys.java,Mary

You could move the files using this shell command:

$ cut -d, -f2 < x.csv | xargs -I '{}'  mv '{}' /home/me/new-directory