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I'm trying to learn bash -slowly- but finding it difficult to get a grasp of the more technical aspects without a real-word example that fits something I would want to use. To that end, I'd like to know how to use bash (and 7zip) to archive some photos in preparation for storing them online.

Essentially, I imagine this is as 'simple' as making a .7z archive of each directory, assigning each archive the same name as the relevant directory. All directories have been named without spaces, should that matter.

Grateful for all advice.

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The way to compress a directory foo to an archive named foo.7z using 7z is to use command a ("add"):

7z a foo.7z foo

To do so for multiple directories, one could use a loop:

for dir in foo bar baz; do 7z a "$dir".7z "$dir" done

(This is safe against directory names that include spaces, because $dir is quoted, but not against directory names that start with a dash; those would result in 7z attempting to interpret them as options.)

If the name of directories you intend to archive share a pattern, then you could use that in the for loop, instead of listing all directories explicitly, e.g. for dir in [0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]-*; ....

Note that the 7z documentation warns against using the 7z format for archival purposes on Unix, because it doesn't preserve ownership information. This may or may not matter for you.

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  • I don't know if this answers your question; please comment if not. Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 17:02
  • Thanks @dhag, the for loop idea is just what I'm looking for. Unfortunately, the naming pattern I have for the photos isn't as convenient as that, although they all start with six numbers and a dash to signify a date, instead being descriptive of occasions, people, etc. (e.g. "131225-Christmas-Day"). Does this mean I have to explicitly list every directory to be archived (trivial with 'ls', I assume), and that there's no way of more simply having the loop act on all directories? Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 19:15
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    I updated my answer to include an example that matches the format you showed: file names starting with six digits, followed by a dash. Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 19:19
  • I forgot to say that I don't need to keep any Linux ownerships or permissions in this case, so 7z will be fine. Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 19:19
  • Brilliant! Even before watching it do exactly what I wanted, seeing the format of your updated answer and how it applied to my photos was instantly explanatory. Thanks again! Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 19:40

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