How to make this AppleScript faster and better

Isn't this the same question you asked (and got answered?) here: Applescript: if file contains any of names move to specific folder ?

Hello

You might replace your try block with the following code.

(* -- context memo property source_folder : "path:to:source_folder" property tattoos_folder : "path:to:tattoos_folder" property models_folder : "path:to:models_folder" property names_text : "path:to:names.txt" *) set args to "" repeat with a in {source_folder, tattoos_folder, models_folder, names_text} set args to args & (a as alias)'s POSIX path's quoted form & space end repeat do shell script "/bin/bash -s <<'EOF' - " & args & " SOURCE=$1 TATTOOS=$2 MODELS=$3 # $MODELS cannot be a descendant of $SOURCE NAMES=$4 # move files in $SOURCE whose name contains some name in $NAMES to $MODELS while read n do [[ -z \"$n\" ]] && continue # skip blank line find \"$SOURCE\" -type f -name \"*$n*\" -print0 | xargs -0 -J% mv % \"$MODELS\" done < <(awk '1' \"$NAMES\") # move rest of files in $SOURCE (except for dot files) to $TATTOOS find \"$SOURCE\" -type f ! -name '.*' -print0 | xargs -0 -J% mv % \"$TATTOOS\" EOF"

Regards,

H

Hello

You're welcome. 🙂

And if I understand you correctly, you might try something like the following code to handle additional destination per name list. In the following example, the files that are not moved to c1..c3 according to c1_names..c3_names are moved to c4.

set source to "path:to:source" set c1 to "path:to:category1" set c2 to "path:to:category2" set c3 to "path:to:category3" set c4 to "path:to:category4" set c1_names to "path:to:category1_names.txt" set c2_names to "path:to:category2_names.txt" set c3_names to "path:to:category3_names.txt" set args to "" repeat with a in {source, c1, c1_names, c2, c2_names, c3, c3_names, c4} set args to args & (a as alias)'s POSIX path's quoted form & space end repeat do shell script "/bin/bash -s <<'EOF' - " & args & " # # $1 : source_directory # $2.. : destination_1 list_1 ... destionation_n list_n destination_r # # - file in source_direcotry is moved to destination_k if the name containns some name in list_k for k = 1..n # - file in source_directory which has not been moved to destination_1..n is moved to destination_r if destination_r is given # - destination_i (i = 1..n, r) cannot be descendant of source_directory # - if there's no corresponding destination_k for list_k, list_i (i = k..n) is ignored. # - destination_k and list_k may be either interleaved or separated in arguments list # SOURCE=$1 DEST=() # array of destination directories LIST=() # array of name list files shift for a in \"$@\" do [[ -d $a ]] && DEST+=( \"$a\" ) [[ -f $a ]] && LIST+=( \"$a\" ) done # move files in $SOURCE whose name contains some name in ${LIST[i]} to ${DEST[i]} for (( i = 0; i < ${#LIST[@]}; i++ )) do [[ -z ${DEST[i]} ]] && break # break if no corresponding destination awk '1' \"${LIST[i]}\" | while read n do [[ -z \"$n\" ]] && continue # skip blank line find \"$SOURCE\" -type f -name \"*$n*\" -print0 | xargs -0 -J% mv % \"${DEST[i]}\" done done [[ -z ${DEST[i]} ]] && exit # exit if no destination left # move rest of files in $SOURCE (except for dot files) to ${DEST[i}} find \"$SOURCE\" -type f ! -name '.*' -print0 | xargs -0 -J% mv % \"${DEST[i]}\" EOF"

Briefly tested under OS X 10.6.8 but no warranties. Please make sure you have backup of directories and files before running this sort of script.

Good luck,

H

My pleasure! Glad to know it serves you well. 🙂