Duplicate a file with random probability I have a directly full of images and I am trying to put together a script/command that will randomly copy (with some probability) the image to a location with a random name at that destination (because I might just want to copy it in place and not collide with the existing file). Also complicating matters is that the file has spaces in it and I have 30 gb of files I am working with Here is what I have so far. Those file spaces are a killer #!/bin/bash for i in $(find pics/ -type f); do v=$(($RANDOM % 2)) if [ $v -eq 0 ]; then cp $i dups/$RANDOM.jpg; fi done I would eventually like something like: > ./rcp.sh source/ destination/ I have looked at > shuff but it doesn't get me past my space-in-file name issues either. Maybe there is a way to take this and have it also do the shuffle?

The way to handle files with spaces is to use the `-print0` directive for GNU find, and the `-d` option for bash's `read` command. It's also imperitive to quote the `"$variable"`


find pics/ -type f -print0 | while IFS= read -rd "" filename; do
v=$((RANDOM % 2))
if (( v == 0 )); then
cp "$filename" dups/$RANDOM.jpg
fi
done


The `IFS=` and `-r` bits are to ensure that spaces and backslashes are handled properly by the `read` command.

Inside `(( ... ))` arithmetic expressions, you can give shell variables without the `$`.