How to use tqdm in bash for loops?

Question

I have this for loop for example that takes so much time to finish so I want to use tqdm to have a nice progress bar like in python. But I can't find any way to do it?

for f in `find mydir -name *.jpg -print`; do cp $f images/${f//\//_}; done

How can I get a progress bar for this loop?

Answer 1

This is a really old question, but currently the readme for tqdm says that using it as a command in bash works fine, e.g.:

$ seq 9999999 | tqdm --bytes | wc -l
75.2MB [00:00, 217MB/s]
9999999

$ tar -zcf - docs/ | tqdm --bytes --total `du -sb docs/ | cut -f1` \
    > backup.tgz
 32%|???????????                      | 8.89G/27.9G [00:42<01:31, 223MB/s]

However, tqdm showing a progress bar is dependent on the command giving it information to build a progress bar from, which cp doesn't (even cp -v doesn't send buffered info, so you'll only get the progress bar once cp completes).

That said, if you want a progress bar for copying files you should like into either rsync --progress or the pv command.

Using rsync, the command to solve your question could be something like:

rsync -avzh --progress **/*.jpg images/

Answer 2

To use tqdm in a Bash loop, you need:

1. to output something
2. to know the total number of iterations (optional)
3. to add tqdm after the done.

In your case:

total=1000
for f in `find mydir -name *.jpg -print`; do echo $f; cp $f images/${f//\//_}; done | tqdm --total $total >> /dev/null

See the answer: https://github.com/tqdm/tqdm/issues/436#issuecomment-330504048