Why is this bash script failing?

Red Squirrel · Mar 2, 2025

Code:

#!/bin/bash

BASEMAILDIR="/localdata/mail/vhosts/"


function LearnMailBox()
{
        USER=$1
        DOMAIN=$2

        echo "Processing bayes for ${USER}@${DOMAIN}..."



        mkdir -p "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes/new"
        mkdir -p "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes/cur"
        mkdir -p "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes/tmp"



#       sa-learn --spam "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes"

        mv -v "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes/new/*" "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam/new" #2>/dev/null
        mv -v "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes/cur/*" "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam/cur" #2>/dev/null
        mv -v "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes/tmp/*" "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam/tmp" #2>/dev/null
}



LearnMailBox "user" "domain"

Specifically, this part:

Code:

        mv -v "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes/new/*" "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam/new" 
        mv -v "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes/cur/*" "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam/cur" 
        mv -v "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes/tmp/*" "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam/tmp"

Keep getting error "no such file or directory" but yet if I type out the full path manually (even copying and pasting the path right from the error) in the console it works. The folders do exist. It only works when I do it manually and not when running the script.

Red Squirrel · Mar 2, 2025

Ended up just rewriting it to use rsync with option to delete source files after copy. mv seems to not like using the star inside a script, with quotes.

orenero · Mar 22, 2025

Next time in your scripts / trouble shooting try running "set -x" it will show extra output which is valuable in troubleshooting.

Ken g6 · Mar 23, 2025

I keep running into this recently. Bash won't parse globs inside quotes (on its own). But if you can leave the glob outside the quotes, it should work.

Code:

        mv -v "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam-bayes/new/"* "${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam/new/"

It's good practice to leave a trailing slash on the end of a mv destination when you want it to be a directory. Otherwise a file might someday accidentally get renamed to "new".

Red Squirrel · Mar 23, 2025

Oh interesting, so put the star after the quotes. I guess it must have been parsing the star as something else.

mv2devnull · Mar 24, 2025

First, you probably know the
mkdir -p somepath/{new,cur,tmp}
and
for DIR in new cur tmp
do mv src/${DIR}/* dst/${DIR}
done

Second, it does make a difference for
mv src/* dst
whether
* the src/* resolves to one name, many, or none
* the dst exist or not
* the dst is a directory or file

Do the ${BASEMAILDIR}${DOMAIN}/${USER}/.spam/{new,cur,tmp} exist before the move, i.e. will you add files to them, or will they be new? If new, then why not just move the entire directories, and not all of their contents?

Red Squirrel · Mar 24, 2025

I want the old folder to still exist. The folder at the destination will also already exist, but in cases where it doesn't I want to make sure it gets created.

I have it all working now though. The jist of it is I have a "spam-bayes" folder in every mailbox, when I get spam that did not get flagged I move it to that folder. A script runs to learn from the spam and then moves it when it's done with it.

Why is this bash script failing?

Red Squirrel

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Red Squirrel

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orenero

Senior member

Ken g6

Programming Moderator, Elite Member

Red Squirrel

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mv2devnull

Golden Member

Red Squirrel

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