🗃️ collect_files.sh

A simple Bash script to collect and consolidate files from subdirectories of a root directory into a single _all folder, while preserving their parent directory names as filename prefixes.

📋 Description

This script scans all subdirectories (excluding _all) of a specified root directory and copies all files found into a new _all folder under that root. Each file is renamed using the format:

<parent_directory>_<original_filename>

This helps avoid filename collisions and keeps track of each file's origin.

📁 Example

Given the following directory structure:

/data
├── project1
│   └── report.txt
├── project2
│   └── report.txt

Running:

./collect_files.sh /data

Creates:

/data/_all/
├── project1_report.txt
├── project2_report.txt

🚀 Usage

./collect_files.sh /path/to/root-directory

• Replace /path/to/root-directory with the actual path to the root directory containing the subfolders.
• The script will create (or update) a _all folder inside the root directory.

⚠️ Notes

• Files in the _all directory are overwritten if a name collision occurs.
• The script skips the _all directory to avoid infinite recursion.
• The original directory structure is not modified.

🛠 Requirements

• Bash (tested on GNU Bash 5.1+)
• find, dirname, basename, and cp utilities (available in most Unix-like systems)