A Python script for moving a given list of files to a separate subdirectory while maintaining the directory structure.

mover.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

"""Move listed files to a separate tree

Usage::

    cd /root/of/files
    python mover.py <list-of-files.txt    # only lists what will be moved
    python mover.py -x <list-of-files.txt # actually moves the files

If any of the listed files is missing, the script terminates with an error.

Example:

If ``/tmp/list-of-files.txt`` contains::

    first.txt
    subdir/second.txt

and we have on the disk::

    /tmp/test/mover.py
    /tmp/test/first.txt
    /tmp/test/third.txt
    /tmp/test/subdir/second.txt
    /tmp/test/anothersubdir/fourth.txt

and we do::

    cd /tmp/test
    python mover.py </tmp/list-of-files.txt

then no files will yet be moved, but we get the output::

    /tmp/test/first.txt
    /tmp/test/subdir/second.txt

If we then run::

    python mover.py -x </tmp/list-of-files.txt

then we'll get the same output, and have this on the disk::

    /tmp/test/mover.py
    /tmp/test/third.txt
    /tmp/test/anothersubdir/fourth.txt
    /tmp/test/MOVED/first.txt
    /tmp/test/MOVED/subdir/second.txt

"""


import argparse
import os
import shutil
import sys


def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument('--execute', '-x', action='store_true')
    args = parser.parse_args()
    for line in sys.stdin:
        filepath = line.strip()
        if not filepath:
            break

        assert os.path.isfile(filepath), '{0} not found'.format(filepath)

        directory = os.path.dirname(filepath)
        target_directory = os.path.join('MOVED', directory)
        try:
            os.makedirs(target_directory)
        except OSError:
            pass

        target_filepath = os.path.join('MOVED', filepath)
        if args.execute:
            shutil.move(filepath, target_filepath)

        print filepath


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()