Loop through directory structure and include all *.pdf files

Question

I have a document that is constructed from a number of *.tex files stored in a directory organized as follows:

-2022
   -07
      -01
         -note.tex
         -file1.pdf
         -differentfilename.pdf
      -02
         -note.tex
      -05
         -note.tex
         -somefile.pdf
         -anotherfile.pdf
etc.

My "master" LaTeX document loops through all of the date folders and includes the note.tex into the document. I'd like to include the various pdf files as links to open in the system reader if they are present on a given day. Is there a way I can get LaTeX to loop through the file structure and include pdf's as appropriate? My MWE attempt is as follows:

% !TEX options=--shell-escape
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[letterpaper,margin=1.25in,top=1in,bottom=1in]{geometry}
\usepackage{pgfcalendar}
\let\d=\pgfcalendarshorthand
\newcommand\formatdate[2]{\pgfcalendar{cal}{#1}{#1}{#2}}

\newcommand\firstdate{2022-07-01}
\newcommand\lastdate{\year-\month-\day}

\begin{document}

\pgfcalendar{cal}{\firstdate}{\lastdate}{%
    \def\formatteddate{\d{y}0/\d{m}0/\d{d}0}%
    \graphicspath{ {./\formatteddate/}}     
    \IfFileExists{./\formatteddate/note.tex}{
        \marginpar{\vspace*{1em}\textsf{ \d m. \d d- \d y- }}%
        \vspace*{1.5em}
        \addcontentsline{toc}{section}{\d mt \d d0, \d y0}%
        \input{./\formatteddate/note.tex}
        \begin{flushright}
            HERE IS WHERE I'D LIKE SOME COMMAND THAT CAN FIND ANY PDFS IN THE DAY'S FOLDER AND INCLUDE A LINK TO THEM IF POSSIBLE.
        \end{flushright}

    }{}
}


\end{document}

I guess it's fairly easy to do this if the file names followed some convention, but in my case they do not, so I'd like to identify them by the .pdf extension and include links to any such files. Thank you!

Answer 1

To make my shell script suggestion precise: work in the parent directory to 2022.

1. Create a .tex file (say preamble.tex) that contains all the preamble material (up to \begin{document}).
2. Create the following buildscript.sh (untested; maybe typos)

#!/bin/bash
cat preamble.tex > main.tex
for filedate in */*/*
do
###  Insert lines here such us your margin par and ToC commands
    echo "\input{./${filedate}/notes.tex}" >> main.tex
    if compgen -G $filedate/*.pdf >/dev/null; then
        for pdffile in $filedate/*pdf
        do
            ### Change this line to format it or whatever
            echo "\href{run:./${pdffile}}" >> main.tex
        done
    fi
done
echo "\end{document}" >> main.tex
latexmk main.tex

If you run buildscript.sh it should, for each date, first input the corresponding notes.tex and then create a hyperlink (make sure to load hyperref in your preamble) to every pdf file in that directory. And after creating the TeX file it will build it for you.

---

Quick explanation:

• The script above assumes a directory structure year/month/day as you indicated.
• It assumes every day will have a notes.tex; you can add an existence check if you want.
• It does not assume there are any PDF files. The compgen -G command is a bash specific builtin (hence #!/bin/bash) that returns true if the glob pattern has non-zero matches. So no hyperlinks are created if there are no PDF files in the directory.