Hi everyone,

I will be downloading a file every day with the name in this format

SCA20060303_17514_IN.TXT

And I need to rename it to

SCA20060303_IN.TXT

Where "20060303" is the current date, and the "_17514" part will always be a 5-digit number that I will NOT know beforehand. I just need to take it out.

I've always used the mv filename1 filename2 command to rename files but how can I do this if I don't know the exact original name of the file?

Thanks,

Ryan

echo 'SCA20060303_17514_IN.TXT' | sed 's#^\([^_][^_]*\)_[0-9][0-9]*\(.*\)#\1\2#'

Thank you, but I won't know the file name beforehand. To get the file, I do

mget SCA*.TXT

How can I do this without knowing the original name?

well.. 'mget' the files AND rename them all afterwards.

OR

look into ftp's [if that's the client you're using] "nmap" command if one exists for your ftp client:

ftp host
    nmap $1_$2_$3 $1_$3
    mget SCA*.TXT

for f in SCA????????_?????_IN.TXT;do
      echo mv $f ${f%%_*}_IN.TXT
done

Thank you all for your help. vgersh99, that nmap command is crazy!

everything is relative in this world!
do you understand what 'nmap' does?
did you consider the pros and cons of either of the methods?