Creating directory in bulk using mkdir in shell script

Question

I am trying to create directory in bulk using mkdir through shell script below is the script

#!bin/bash
mkdir /tmp/report*/testfolder*/testdoank

when i run it i got an error

-bash: ./makefolder.sh: bin/bash: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

what is wrong?

Solution 1

Apart from the invalid path in the hashbang, which is the cause of the error you get, you also have a problem with the mkdir command itself.

Remember that globs only work to list existing files, so anything that looks like mkdir /tmp/foo* will just pass existing directories as arguments to mkdir. If /tmp/foo1 exists, it will be passed to mkdir, which will then complain that it already exists. If /tmp/foo2 doesn't exist, it will not be passed to mkdir, and will not be created. You'll have to do something else to create new directories.

It's unclear what directories you want to create, but assuming you want to create a directory testdoank under every directory matching /tmp/report*/testfolder*, then something like this might do:

for dir in /tmp/report*/testfolder*; do
    mkdir "$dir"/testdoank
done

Solution 2

Due to the original formatting of your question, it looked like you were missing the '#' character in your shell declaration. However, the actual error was caused by a missing / in the path of bash.

This is the proper way to determine your shell in a bash script:

#!/bin/bash

Solution 3

The shell script must start with #!, not simply !.

Comments

[Stephen Kitt]

@ajgringo619 that’s the correct answer, please write it up as an answer rather than a comment.

[Stephen Kitt]

That was a formatting problem in the question.

[heff]

thanks this is what im looking for

[Kusalananda]

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