Moving multiple files in directory that might have duplicate file names

Question

can anyone help me with this?

I am trying to copy images from my USB to an archive on my computer, I have decided to make a BASH script to make this job easier. I want t

Answer 1

for file in "$source"/*; do
    newfile="$dest"/"$file"
    while [ -e "$newfile" ]; do
        newfile=$newfile.JPG
    done
    cp "$file" "$newfile"
done

There is a race condition here (if another process could create a file by the same name between the first done and the cp) but that's fairly theoretical.

It would not be hard to come up with a less primitive renaming policy; perhaps replace .JPG at the end with an increasing numeric suffix plus .JPG?