Develop Reference

Script that will transfer photos from phone camera using adb

Story
I take photos and record videos with my phone camera and keep all of them on my internal storage/sdcard. I periodically back them up on my PC, so I keep these camera photos on PC storage in sync with phone storage.
For years, I've been backing up my phone camera photos to my PC in the following way:
Plug in phone into PC and allow access to phone data
Browse phone storage → DCIM → Camera
Wait several minutes for the system to load a list of ALL photos
Copy only several latest photos which haven't been backed up yet
I figured that waiting several minutes for all photos to load is an unnecessary drag so I downloaded adb platform tools. I've added the folder bin to my Path environment variable (i.e. %USERPROFILE%\Tools\adb-platform-tools_r28.0.3) so that I can seamlessly use adb and not write its full path each time.
The script
I wrote the following script for Git Bash for Windows. It is also compatible with Unix if you change the $userprofile variable. Essentially, the script pulls camera photos between two dates from phone storage to PC.
# Attach device and start deamon process
adb devices
# Initialize needed variables
userprofile=$(echo "$USERPROFILE" | tr "\\" "/") # Windows adjustments
srcFolder="//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera" # Remote folder
dstFolder="$userprofile/Desktop/CameraPhotos" # Local folder
lsFile="$dstFolder/camera-ls.txt"
filenameRegex="2019061[5-9]_.*" # Date from 20190615 to 20190619
# Create dst folder if it doesn't exist
mkdir -p "$dstFolder"
# 1. List contents from src folder
# 2. Filter out file names matching regex
# 3. Write these file names line by line into a ls file
adb shell ls "$srcFolder" | grep -E "$filenameRegex" > "$lsFile"
# Pull files listed in ls file from src to dst folder
while read filename; do
if [ -z "$filename" ]; then continue; fi
adb pull "$srcFolder/$filename" "$dstFolder" # adb: error: ...
done < "$lsFile"
# Clean up
rm "$lsFile"
# Inform the user
echo "Done pulling files to $dstFolder"
The problem
When I run the script (bash adb-pull-camera-photos.sh), everything runs smoothly except for the adb pull command in the while-loop. It gives the following error:
': No such file or directoryemote object '//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190618_124656.jpg
': No such file or directoryemote object '//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190618_204522.jpg
': No such file or directoryemote object '//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190619_225739.jpg
I am not sure why the output is broken. Sometimes when I resize the Git Bash window some of the text goes haywire. This is the actual error text:
adb: error: failed to stat remote object '//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190618_124656.jpg': No such file or directory
adb: error: failed to stat remote object '//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190618_204522.jpg': No such file or directory
adb: error: failed to stat remote object '//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190619_225739.jpg': No such file or directory
I am sure that these files exist in the specified directory on the phone. When I manually execute the failing command in bash, it succeeds with the following output:
$ adb pull "//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190618_124656.jpg" "C:/Users/User/Desktop/CameraPhotos/"
//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190618_124656.jpg: 1 file pulled. 15.4 MB/s (1854453 bytes in 0.115s)
The question
I can't figure out what's wrong with the script. I thought the Windows system might be causing a commotion, because I don't see the reason why the same code works when entered manually, but doesn't work when run in a script. How do I fix this error?
Additional info
Note that I had to use // in the beginning of an absolute path on Windows because Git Bash would interpret / as its own root directory (C:\Program Files\Git).
I've echoed all variables inside the script and got all the correct paths that otherwise work via manual method.
camera-ls.txt file contents
20190618_124656.jpg
20190618_204522.jpg
20190619_225739.jpg
Additional questions
Is it possible to navigate to external sdcard without using its name? I had to use /storage/06CB-C9CE/ because /sdcard/ navigates to internal storage.
Why does tr "\\" "/" give me this error: tr: warning: an unescaped backslash at end of string is not portable?

Windows batch script
Here's a .bat script that can be run by Windows Command Prompt or Windows PowerShell. No Git Bash required.
:: Start deamon of the device attached
adb devices
:: Pull camera files starting from date
set srcFolder=/storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera
set dstFolder=%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\CameraPhotos
set lsFile=%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\CameraPhotos\camera-ls.txt
set dateRegex=2019061[5-9]_.*
mkdir %dstFolder%
adb shell ls %srcFolder% | adb shell grep %dateRegex% > %lsFile%
for /F "tokens=*" %%A in (%lsFile%) do adb pull %srcFolder%/%%A %dstFolder%
del %lsFile%
echo Done pulling files to %dstFolder%
Just edit the srcFolder to point to your phone camera folder,
plug a pattern into the dateRegex for matching the date interval and
save it as a file with .bat extension, i.e: adb-pull-camera-photos.bat.
Double-click the file and it will pull filtered photos into CameraPhotos folder on Desktop.
Keep in mind that you still need have adb for Windows on your PC.

The problem was with Windows line delimiters.
Easy fix
Just add the IFS=$'\r\n' above the loop so that the read command knows the actual line delimiter.
IFS=$'\r\n'
while read filename; do
if [ -z "$filename" ]; then continue; fi
adb pull "$srcFolder/$filename" "$dstFolder"
done < "$lsFile"
Explanation
I tried plugging the whole while-loop into the console and it failed with the same error:
$ bash adb-pull-camera-photos.sh
List of devices attached
9889db343047534336 device
tr: warning: an unescaped backslash at end of string is not portable
': No such file or directoryemote object '//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190618_124656.jpg
': No such file or directoryemote object '//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190618_204522.jpg
': No such file or directoryemote object '//storage/06CB-C9CE/DCIM/Camera/20190619_225739.jpg
Done pulling files to C:/Users/User/Desktop/CameraPhotos
This time I started investigating why the output was broken. I remembered that windows uses \r\n as newline, which means Carriage Return + Line Feed, (CR+LF), so some text must have been overwritten.
It was because of broken values stored inside the $filename variable.
This is the loop from the script:
while read filename; do
if [ -z "$filename" ]; then continue; fi
adb pull "$srcFolder/$filename" "$dstFolder"
done < "$lsFile"
Since each iteration of the while-loop reads a line from $lsFile in the following form:
exampleFilename.jpg\r\n
It misinterprets the newline symbols as part of the file name, so adb pull tries to read files with these whitespaces in their names, but fails and it additionally writes a broken output.

Adb Photo Sync
This might not be the answer but might be useful for others looking for android photo/files backup solution.
I use this script on my Windows with git bash. This can be easily used for Linux. A common issue with a long backup process is that it might get interrupted and you might have to restart the entire copy process from start.
This script saves you from this trouble. You can restart the script or interrupt in between but it will resume copy operation from the point it left.
Just change the rfolder => android folder, lfolder => local folder
#!/bin/sh
rfolder=sdcard/DCIM/Camera
lfolder=/f/mylocal/s8-backup/Camera
adb shell ls "$rfolder" > android.files
ls -1 "$lfolder" > local.files
rm -f update.files
touch update.files
while IFS= read -r q; do
# Remove non-printable characters (are not visible on console)
l=$(echo ${q} | sed 's/[^[:print:]]//')
# Populate files to update
if ! grep -q "$l" local.files; then
echo "$l" >> update.files
fi
done < android.files
script_dir=$(pwd)
cd $lfolder
while IFS= read -r q; do
# Remove non-printable characters (are not visible on console)
l=$(echo ${q} | sed 's/[^[:print:]]//')
echo "Get file: $l"
adb pull "$rfolder/$l"
done < "${script_dir}"/update.files

Running apktool in a bash script

I am trying to write a bash script that decompiles several .apk files using apktool. Each apk file is located in a subdirectory of the sample folder.
#!bin/bash
for item in $(ls samples);
do
for apk in $(ls "samples/$item");
do
echo ./apktool/apktool d "./samples/$item$apk"
$(./apktool/apktool d "./samples/$item$apk")
done
done
When I run the script I get the following output:
./apktool/apktool d ./samples/ADRD/53dc.apk*
Input file (./samples/ADRD/53dc.apk*) was not found or was not readable.
The input file error message is the standard for when apktool cannot find a file. However, if I run the following command in the terminal the apktool will work correctly.
./apktool/apktool d ./samples/ADRD/53dc.apk*
I have changed the permissions of all the files located in the samples folder to rw for all users. I also have tried using sudo with the shell script, but this causes the script to hang. However, when I use sudo with the apktool in the command line it also hangs. Therefore, I am not sure if using sudo with apktool is doable.
Any help is appreciated, thanks.

So it looks like this ls gives you an output with an asterisk * appended at the end of the apk filename, because the file is executable.
for apk in $(ls "samples/$item");
This is not the default behaviour of ls, you are getting this probably because you have aliased ls to ls -F or similar. To bypass the alias, rewrite the line this way:
for apk in $(\ls "samples/$item");
Notice the \ I added there.
BTW, is it normal that an apk file is executable? Perhaps you can remove the executable bit:
find samples -name '*.apk' -exec chmod -x {} \;
Also, possibly your script can be replaced with this one liner:
find samples -name '*.apk' -exec ./apktool/apktool d {} \;
Mind you, this is not exactly the same thing, because it may go deeper than two directories. If you need to limit the depth, that's possible too, see man find

Rsync and ssh on android: No such file or directory

I'm trying to write an android app that backs up data from selected directory of an android device to a remote host using rsync and ssh. When I run the rsync command from adb shell as follows, it works:
rsync -rvz -e "/system/xbin/ssh -y -p 22" "/mnt/sdcard/" "rajeesh#10.0.2.2:backup/"
But my java code using Runtime.exec fails with an error that says:
Error: rsync: failed to exec /system/xbin/ssh -y -p 22: No such file or directory (2)
The code I used is as follows:
String[] commands = {
"rsync", "-rvz", "-e", "\"/system/xbin/ssh -y -p 22\"",
"\"/mnt/sdcard/\"", "\"rajeesh#10.0.2.2:backup/\""
};
Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(commands);
Both rsync and ssh have been placed at /system/xbin and chmoded to 755. Tried replacing "rsync" with "/system/xbin/rsync" also but the issue remains. What would be the issue here?

Found out the issue myself.
When run directly from the shell, quotes have specific meaning and they are required here as follows:
rsync -rvz -e "ssh -y -p 22" "/path/to/src/" "/path/to/dest"
My java snippet above was trying to run the command with the quotes escaped, like "\"arg\"". But quotes not required when used outside shell. The correct usage is:
String[] commands = {
"/system/xbin/rsync", "-rvz", "-e", "/system/xbin/ssh -y -p 22",
"/mnt/sdcard", "rajeesh#10.0.2.2:backup/"
};

I'm not sure but maybe problem is that the destination path (rajeesh#10.0.2.2:backup/) is not absolute?
Also if you what to sync your files in the same device, maybe you should try to not use ssh? And do something like that:
rsync -rvz /mnt/sdcard/some_directory /backup

Time cannot run brunch?

I'm having an issue with the time command.
I use /usr/bin/time so i can use the -f and -o modifiers.
My script is:
make clean
repo sync -j5
. ./platform_manifest/manual_add_kernel_manifest.sh \
&& . build/envsetup.sh \
&& /usr/bin/time -o log$day$month.log -f "Buildtime: %E" brunch aokp_mako-eng
The script is part of an automated build system for an android ROM.
When it gets to the time part, i get:
/usr/bin/time: cannot run brunch: No such file or directory
Command exited with non-zero status 127
Buildtime: 0:00.00
Brunch works fine with the regular time command, but I cannot route its output to a file, which is why I am using /usr/bin/time in the first place. If there is a way to do this, that is fine for me as I can trim off the real: header with | awk '{ print $2 }'.
Any help is appreciated!
Ubuntu 12.04, all updates installed

I don't know what brunch is, but the most likely reason that a non-builtin time program can't find it, even when the built-in time can, is that it's a shell function or a Bash alias.
Whether or not that's the case . . .
[…] I cannot route [the regular time command's] output to a file […]
You can write:
{ time brunch aokp_mako-eng ; } 2>"log$day$month.log"
to wrap time (and everything else) into a command-list whose STDERR has already been redirected to the file.

How to write script in Android for various task

I have rooted android phone and I am getting the # when I use "su" i wish to write a script that would keep running in background like service at application end and do the needful task for me. Where should i keep the .sh fle so that it will run on system boot so that no body will able to kill it ... i mean it should work like system service/apps ..

you have to write a script and save it either data/local/tmp/example.sh and it should like that
example.sh
#!/system/bin/sh
cd /data/local/tmp
while true; do
for i in *.apk ; do
if ls $i 2> /dev/null >/dev/null ; then
echo "`date` : Found new $i " >> /data/local/tmp/update_log
fi
done
sleep 120
reboot
sleep 180
done
and add it to any .sh file which is run on boot of the device it will check for any apk on data/local/tmp folder and create a list of that as update_log i put it on /data/local/tmp
and bind it with init.wlan.sh on the last line with & ..hope it works for you