Convert all .ape files to .flac in different subfolders

Question

I was trying to convert some .ape files to .flac files using avconv on command line; obviously, avconv is not the main point here; its syntax is pretty straightforward, avconv -i inputApeFile.ape outputFlacFile.flac.

The point is that the files are nested in more subfolders; i.e., I have the Artist folder, then various CD subfolders, each of one contain different .ape files. How can I convert all the files and then save them in the same folder of the original file but with the .flac extension?

If it is possible, I'd like to use only shell command on a single line without using scripts. I think it should be something like that

avconv -i 'ls -R | grep ape' '???'

but I'm stuck with the second part (maybe using sed??!?)

Solution 1

The command that you need is:

find /path/to/MainDir/ -type f -name "*.ape"  -execdir sh -c ' avconv -i "$1" "${1%.ape}.flac" ' _ {} \;

This will find each file that has .ape suffix and then convert it with the same filename with .flac suffix to the same location as original file is located.

{} is the path of current found file.
_{See the test from here}

Solution 2

The (python) script below should do the job. Copy it into an empty file, save it as convert.py, set the directory to the files in the head section of the script (convert_dir =) and run it by the command:

python3 /path/to/convert.py

The script

#!/usr/bin/env python3

convert_dir = "/path/to/folder/tobeconverted"

import os
import subprocess

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(convert_dir):
    for name in files:
        if name.endswith(".ape"):
            # filepath+name
            file = root+"/"+name
            # to use in other (convert) commands: replace the "avconv -i" by your command, and;
            # replace (".ape", ".flac") by the input / output extensions of your conversion
            command = "avconv -i"+" "+file+" "+file.replace(".ape", ".flac")
            subprocess.Popen(["/bin/bash", "-c", command])
        else:
            pass

Solution 3

Now that ffmpeg is preferred over avconv again, and there are cheap many core computers ($60 for an 8 core XU4) I fount the following to be most effective;

#!/bin/bash

#
# ape2flac.sh
#

function f2m(){
        FILE=$(echo "$1" | perl -p -e 's/.ape$//g');
        if [ ! -f "$FILE".flac ] ; then
                ffmpeg -v quiet -i "$FILE.ape" "$FILE.flac"
        fi
}
export -f f2m
find "$FOLDER" -name '*.ape' | xargs -I {} -P $(nproc) bash -c 'f2m "$@"' _ "{}"

Comments

[tigerjack]

thanks for your reply and your time Jacob. However, if it is possible, I'd like to use only shell command on a single line without using script (sorry for that, I had to specifiy this before)

[Jacob Vlijm]

@tigerjack89 Well, maybe someone els could use it in similar situations; the syntax <command> <inputfile> <outputfile> is pretty common.

[evilsoup]

This won't work; avconv can't take input files from STDIN like that.

[tigerjack]

what about the output folder?

[Edward Torvalds]

@evilsoup I have updated the answer, xargs can solve the issue. please try this.