Using a bash script to alter multiple files

Trouble with variables

[encyclo]

I need to convert a bunch of files from the ISO-8859-1 encoding to UTF-8. For this I'm using the

iconv

command to automatically generate UTF-8 versions of each file. However, I want to automate this rather than doing it file by file, but my pitiful bash skills are not up to getting this working.

Here's my first attempt:

#/bin/bash
for i in *.php;
do iconv -f iso-8859-1 -t utf-8 %i -o %i_utf-8;
do mv %i_utf-8 %i;
done

But I get the error:

iconv: cannot open input file `%i': No such file or directory

Could anyone tell me where I'm going wrong? I've also got Python 2.4.1 or Perl 5.8 or PHP 4.3.10 if bash isn't the most appropriate tool.

Many thanks for any insight!

[jamie]

hi encyclo,

i am sure someone will come up with a better solution...

you need to feed "

for x in ...

" a list of all php files. create the list

LIST=`ls *.php` 
for $i in $LIST 
do  
... 
... 
done

hth

[encyclo]

Thanks for your reply jamie.

I'm getting a different error now, but I think there's signs of progress:

/home/example/bin/convert.sh: line 6: `$i': not a valid identifier

My script now reads like this:

#/bin/bash
LIST=`ls *.php`
for $i in $LIST ;
do iconv -f iso-8859-1 -t utf-8 %i -o %i_utf-8;
mv %i_utf-8 %i;
done

Am I using

%i

incorrectly or do I need to define it differently?

[jamie]

hi encyclo,

it should be $i