Semi-complex restructure of directories in linux - regex

Question

I have a bunch of directories that I need to restructure. They're in a format as such:
./1993-02-22 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/**files**
./1993-02-23 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/**files**
./1993-02-24 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/**files**
./1993-02-25 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/**files**
./1993-03-01 - The Test - Null, FL/**files**
I want to extract the dates from the beginning of each folder. For example, in regex: ([0-9]{4})\-([0-9]{1,2})\-([0-9]{1,2}) and reformat the directories to ./year/month/day.
So, it should output:
./1993/02/22/**files**
./1993/02/23/**files**
./1993/02/24/**files**
./1993/02/25/**files**
./1993/03/01/**files**
How can I go about doing that from a command line?

Answer 1

I understood the question in a different way than Kent. I thought that you wanted to create a new tree of directories from each original one and move all files that it contained. You could try following perl script if that was what you were looking for:
perl -MFile::Path=make_path -MFile::Copy=move -e '
for ( grep { -d } #ARGV ) {
#date = m/\A(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})/;
next unless #date;
$outdir = join q{/}, #date;
make_path( $outdir );
move( $_, $outdir );
}
' *
It reads every file from current directory (* passed as argument) and does two step filter. The first one is the grep for no-directories files and the second one is an undefined #date for those that don't begin with it. Then it joins date's components into a path, creates it if doesn't exist and move the old one with all its files to the new one.
A test:
Here the result of ls -lR to show initial state:
.:
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:56 1993-02-22 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:56 1993-02-23 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:56 1993-02-24 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:57 1993-02-25 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:57 1993-03-01 - The Test - Null, FL
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:47 dummy_dir
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:47 dummy_file
./1993-02-22 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:56 file1
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:56 file2
./1993-02-23 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:56 file3
./1993-02-24 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:56 file4
./1993-02-25 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:57 file5
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:57 file6
./1993-03-01 - The Test - Null, FL:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:57 file7
./dummy_dir:
total 0
And after running the previous script note that the base directory only keeps dummy files and the root of the tree created (1993). Running the same ls -lR yields:
.:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 4 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:59 1993
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:47 dummy_dir
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:47 dummy_file
./1993:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 6 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:59 02
drwxr-xr-x 3 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:59 03
./1993/02:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:56 22
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:56 23
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:56 24
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:57 25
./1993/02/22:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:56 file1
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:56 file2
./1993/02/23:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:56 file3
./1993/02/24:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:56 file4
./1993/02/25:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:57 file5
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:57 file6
./1993/03:
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 2 dcg dcg 4096 sep 7 00:57 01
./1993/03/01:
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 dcg dcg 0 sep 7 00:57 file7
./dummy_dir:
total 0

Answer 2

Suppose your files are stored in "old" folder, then you may write a shell script (avoid using "for" loop that has difficulties with file names containing spaces):
mkdir -p new
ls -d -1 old/*/* | while read oldfile; do
newfile=`echo "$oldfile" | sed -r 's#^old/([0-9]{4})\-([0-9]{1,2})\-([0-9]{1,2})(.*)$#new/\1/\2/\3/\4#'`
newdir=` echo $newfile | sed 's#/[^/]*$##'`
echo "Creating \"$newdir\""
mkdir -p "$newdir"
echo "Moving files from \"$oldfile\" to \"$newfile\""
cp -r "$oldfile" "$newfile"
done
output of script:
Creating "new/1993/02/22/ - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL"
Moving files from "old/1993-02-22 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/test" to "new/1993/02/22/ - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/test"
Creating "new/1993/02/23/ - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL"
Moving files from "old/1993-02-23 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/test" to "new/1993/02/23/ - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/test"
Creating "new/1993/02/24/ - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL"
Moving files from "old/1993-02-24 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/test" to "new/1993/02/24/ - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/test"
Creating "new/1993/02/25/ - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL"
Moving files from "old/1993-02-25 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/test" to "new/1993/02/25/ - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL/test"
Creating "new/1993/03/01/ - The Tes - Null, FL"
Moving files from "old/1993-03-01 - The Tes - Null, FL/test2" to "new/1993/03/01/ - The Tes - Null, FL/test2"
and you'll find your new tree in ... the "new" folder indeed:
$ tree old new
old
├── 1993-02-22 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
│   └── test
├── 1993-02-23 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
│   └── test
├── 1993-02-24 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
│   └── test
├── 1993-02-25 - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
│   └── test
└── 1993-03-01 - The Tes - Null, FL
└── test2
new
└── 1993
├── 02
│   ├── 22
│   │   └── - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
│   │   └── test
│   ├── 23
│   │   └── - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
│   │   └── test
│   ├── 24
│   │   └── - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
│   │   └── test
│   └── 25
│   └── - The Moon - Tallahassee, FL
│   └── test
└── 03
└── 01
└── - The Tes - Null, FL
└── test2

Answer 3

like this?
kent$ awk '{gsub(/-/,"/",$1);sub(/^[^/]*\//,"/",$NF);print $1$NF}' file
./1993/02/22/**files**
./1993/02/23/**files**
./1993/02/24/**files**
./1993/02/25/**files**
./1993/03/01/**files**

Answer 4

Here is a sed+awk after so much of comments :
awk 'BEGIN{FS="-"}{print $1"/"$2"/"$3}' file | awk 'BEGIN{FS="**files**"}{print $1"/"FS}' | sed -e 's/ \//\//g'
./1993/02/22/**files**
./1993/02/23/**files**
./1993/02/24/**files**
./1993/02/25/**files**
./1993/03/01/**files**