UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have a number of files that a structured like this: Eg.
[1a34] file_name.ext1
[45xfb] another file name with spaces.ext2
[777] yatf with [text in brackets].ext3
[y4] also a file (plus).ext4

I would like to swap the [*] part with the descriptive_file_name part, so that it looks like this:
Eg.
file_name [1a34].ext1

I know (or believe) that the two parts need to be assigned to variables that can then be swapped in a mv command, but I'm stuck on how to exactly perform this.

Backup your data first.

Code:

perl -e'
  /([^]]*])\s*(.*)(\..*)$/ and
    rename $_, "$2 $1$3" for glob "*]*";
  '

Thanks, that works like a treat!

I understand the part \s*(.*)(\..*)$, but what is happening in the first group in ()s, ,where it says [^]]*] ?

Can you tell me tell me what for glob (is that global?) and what "*]*" is doing?

Thanks

The first group captures the string on the left of the first closing bracket "]", including the bracket itself. It matches any but the "]" character ([^]]), and the following ]. (if the first character inside a character class after the "[" is "^", the class matches any character not in the list).


For is a keyword that denotes a for loop. glob is a Perl function that acts similarly to the shell globbing (file name generation).
The pattern *]* matches file names containing the ] character.

Or Shell:

Code:

for i in *]*; do 
  e=${i##*.}
  f=${i%.*}
  mv "$i" "${f#* } ${f%% *}.$e"
done