UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I want to rename my mp3s. Iw ant them to use a standard of 'Band Name - Song Title.mp3'. Currently, all of my mp3s are in the following directory structure:

/MyMusic/Band Name/Album Name/*.mp3


Esentailly I want to update each file with the Band Name from the hierarchy and then move all files to the /MyMusic dir. Also, I want to delete the Band Name and Album Name dirs after all files have been moved out.

Thanks in advance!

I know you're looking for a cool unixy way to change your music files, but...

In my other life, I'm a mobile DJ, specializing in weddings. DJ Teddy Bear & Reverend Dave - Your Wedding Done Your Way.

When questions like this come up on the various DJ message boards, the answer is usually the same:

You're best off letting the software you used to rip your CDs, name and store the MP3s where and how it wants. Put too many MP3s in a single directory and the software may choke. Also, most software has the ability to open and show you the folder containing any song, so you really don't need to be able to find stuff on your own.

You might want to write a shell script. First get the list of bands then loop for each band by listing their album name and then loop for each song.

This might not be accurate but you might be able to get it to work,

Code:

mpath="/MyMusic"
for band in `ls -p $mpath | grep "/$" | cut -d"/" -f1`
do
  bandpath="$mpath/$band"
  for album in `ls -p $bandpath | grep "/$" | cut -d"/" -f1`
  do
     albumpath="$bandpath/$album"
     cd $albumpath
     fl_lst=`ls *.mp3`
     cd - > /dev/null
     for fl in $fl_lst
     do
        cp $mpath/$band/$album/$fl $mpath/$band-$album-$fl
     done
  done
done

I am using cp instead of mv so that you can test it out. you if you think it works, just change 'cp' to 'mv'

-kj