Moves files from a source directory to a destination directory, one at a time, with a delay, which extends when the destination directory accumulates files. One use-case is feeding a large number of files into a spool directory where they get processed.

respool-at-pace.sh

#!/bin/bash

set -e

src=${1:-.}
dest=$2

if [ -z "$dest" ] ; then
    dest="$1"
fi

ls -f "$src" | \
    while read f ; do
        if [ -d "$src/$f" ] ; then
            continue
        fi
        # echo "mv $src/$f $dest"
        mv "$src/$f" "$dest"
        sleep 3
        spooled=$(ls -f "$dest" | wc -l)
        if [ $spooled -gt 50 ] ; then
            sleep 90
        elif [ $spooled -gt 30 ] ; then
            sleep 30
        elif [ $spooled -gt 7 ] ; then
            sleep 10
        fi
    done