How to automate dos2unix using shell script?

Question

I have a bunch of xml files in a directory that need to have the dos2unix command performed on them and new files will be added every so often. I Instead of manually performing dos2unix command on each files everytime I would like to automate it all with a script. I have never even looked at a shell script in my life but so far I have this from what I have read on a few tutorials:

FILES=/tmp/testFiles/*
for f in $FILES
do
  fname=`basename $f`
  dos2unix *.xml $f $fname
done

However I keep getting the 'usage' output showing up. I think the problem is that I am not assigning the name of the new file correctly (fname).

Answer 1

The reason you're getting a usage message is that dos2unix doesn't take the extra arguments you're supplying. It will, however, accept multiple filenames (also via globs). You don't need a loop unless you're processing more files than can be accepted on the command line.

dos2unix /tmp/testFiles/*.xml

Should be all you need, unless you need recursion:

find /tmp/testFiles -name '*.xml' -exec dos2unix {} +

(for GNU find)

Answer 2

If all files are in one directory (no recursion needed) then you're almost there.

for file in /tmp/testFiles/*.xml ; do
    dos2unix "$file"
done

By default dos2unix should convert in place and overwrite the original.

If recursion is needed you'll have to use find as well:

find /tmp/testFiles -name '*.xml' -print0 | while IFS= read -d '' file ; do
    dos2unix "$file"
done

Which will work on all files ending with .xml in /tmp/testFiles/ and all of its sub-directories.

If no other step are required you can skip the shell loop entirely:

Non-recursive:

find /tmp/testFiles -maxdepth 1 -name '*.xml' -exec dos2unix {} +

And for recursive:

find /tmp/testFiles -name '*.xml' -exec dos2unix {} +

In your original command I see you finding the base name of each file name and trying to pass that to dos2unix, but your intent is not clear. Later, in a comment, you say you just want to overwrite the files. My solution performs the conversion, creates no backups and overwrites the original with the converted version. I hope this was your intent.