Bash script to rename files in a directory Post: 302601858

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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Bash script to rename files in a directory Post 302601858 by DGPickett on Friday 24th of February 2012 03:41:30 PM

02-24-2012

Registered User

If you do not quote the white space, "$name" every reference, you need to use line feed as your delimiter, or if you have embedded linefeeds, more extreme tricks, like keying off the 'ls -l' non-name printout to pile up the right number of lines, tricky at EOF where there is no following line with an 'ls -l' prefix. C, PERL and such can handle each file name as one string without looking inside.

Code:

$ mkdir emb-ws
$ cd emb-ws
$ echo 'a space' >'a space'
$ echo 'two  space' >'two  space'
$ echo 'a   tab' >'a   tab'
$ echo 'a^Mcarriage-return' >'a^Mcarriage-return'
$  echo 'a
linefeed' >'a
linefeed'
$ ls | while read f; do   echo ">$f<"; done | cat -vte
> )
>a^Itab<$
>a<$
>linefeed<$
>a^Mcarriage-return<$
>a space<$
>two  space<$
$ ls -l |cat -vte
total 20$
-rw-rw-r-- 1 dpickett dpickett  6 Feb 24 15:09 a^Itab$
-rw-rw-r-- 1 dpickett dpickett 11 Feb 24 15:09 a$
linefeed$
-rw-rw-r-- 1 dpickett dpickett 18 Feb 24 15:09 a^Mcarriage-return$
-rw-rw-r-- 1 dpickett dpickett  8 Feb 24 15:09 a space$
-rw-rw-r-- 1 dpickett dpickett 11 Feb 24 15:09 two  space$
$

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prename

RENAME(1)						 Perl Programmers Reference Guide						 RENAME(1)

NAME

       rename - renames multiple files

SYNOPSIS

       rename [ -v ] [ -n ] [ -f ] perlexpr [ files ]

DESCRIPTION

       "rename" renames the filenames supplied according to the rule specified as the first argument.  The perlexpr argument is a Perl expression
       which is expected to modify the $_ string in Perl for at least some of the filenames specified.	If a given filename is not modified by the
       expression, it will not be renamed.  If no filenames are given on the command line, filenames will be read via standard input.

       For example, to rename all files matching "*.bak" to strip the extension, you might say

	       rename 's/.bak$//' *.bak

       To translate uppercase names to lower, you'd use

	       rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/' *

OPTIONS

       -v, --verbose
	       Verbose: print names of files successfully renamed.

       -n, --no-act
	       No Action: show what files would have been renamed.

       -f, --force
	       Force: overwrite existing files.

ENVIRONMENT

       No environment variables are used.

AUTHOR

       Larry Wall

SEE ALSO

       mv(1), perl(1)

DIAGNOSTICS

       If you give an invalid Perl expression you'll get a syntax error.

BUGS

       The original "rename" did not check for the existence of target filenames, so had to be used with care.	I hope I've fixed that (Robin
       Barker).

perl v5.14.2							    2014-09-26								 RENAME(1)