mvr

Description

mvr is a command that allows you to move one or more files to its default temporary directory or to a specified destination and later restore them to their original locations. This is useful for temporarily removing files without permanently deleting them.

Think of the mv command if it also had the option to restore (mvr is meant to mean 'mv with restore').

It works by moving files from their original locations to either a default directory ($HOME/tmp/mvr) or a specified destination (If last argument is a directory, it treats it as the destination). It records the original file paths in a state file ($HOME/tmp/mvr/mvr.txt), and when run without arguments, it restores the files back to their original locations.

Usage

Move files to the default temporary directory:

mvr <file1> [file2 ...]

Example:

mvr foo/file.txt bar/file2.txt

Output:

Moved 'file.txt' to '/home/user/tmp/mvr'
Moved 'file2.txt' to '/home/user/tmp/mvr'
Run mvr without args, to restore files back to their previous location

This moves foo/file.txt and bar/file2.txt to a temporary directory while recording their original paths.

Move files using a file glob:

mvr *.log

Example:

mvr *.log

Output (if there are .log files in the current directory):

Moved 'logfile1.log' to '/home/user/tmp/mvr'
Moved 'logfile2.log' to '/home/user/tmp/mvr'
Run mvr without args, to restore files back to their previous location

This moves all .log files in the current directory to the temporary directory.

Move files to a specific directory:

If the final arg is a directory, it will treat that as the destination to move the files to.

mvr <file1> [file2 ...] <destination>

Example:

mvr foo/file.txt bar/file2.txt /tmp/

Output:

Moved 'file.txt' to '/tmp/'
Moved 'file2.txt' to '/tmp/'
Run mvr without args, to restore files back to their previous location

This moves foo/file.txt and bar/file2.txt to /tmp/ instead of the default temporary directory.

Restore all moved files:

mvr

Example:

mvr

Output (assuming files were previously moved):

Restored 'file.txt' to 'foo/file.txt'
Restored 'file2.txt' to 'bar/file2.txt'

Running mvr without arguments restores all previously moved files to their original locations.

Author

Ryan Kulla