How can I extract files in the directory where they're located with the find command?

Cook4733

11/3/23, 12:58 AM

I have tried to extract multiple files from the directory where they're located with:

for i in $(find . -name '*.tgz'); do  # search the tgz files and extract them
    tar -xvzf $i
done

I expected that the command would extract these files within the directory they were found in, however they are extracted outside their directory. How can I make sure that the .tgz files are extracted in the directory where they are located?

832

2 + 0

bash

find

tar

Score:8

Ubuntu

steeldriver

11/3/23, 1:15 PM

You should avoid constructions like for i in $(find . -name '*.tgz'); do ... - see for example Why is looping over find's output bad practice? - instead, use -exec or -execdir to run the command directly on found files whenever possible.

For your application, -execdir will do exactly what you want i.e. execute tar relative to each .tgz file's containing directory:

find . -name '*.tgz' -execdir tar -xvf {} \;

+ 0

Score:4

Ubuntu

Terrance

11/3/23, 2:38 AM

You need to look at the tar man page: man tar

Found in man tar

   -C, --directory=DIR
          Change to DIR before performing any operations.  This option  is
          order-sensitive, i.e. it affects all options that follow.

And using a command that will give you the directory name of a path is dirname. Then you could add on to your command -C $(dirname $i) to extract to the directory that the tar file was found in. So, you would just change your command to:

for i in $(find . -name '*.tgz'); do
    tar -xvzf $i -C $(dirname $i)
done

+ 1

Mina Michael

11/3/23, 2:57 AM

Good job, that indeed works! @Cook4733 I hope you can mark his answer as the accepted answer.

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