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Full Discussion: Recursive File Renaming & Natural Sorting (Bash)
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Recursive File Renaming & Natural Sorting (Bash) Post 302749637 by Corona688 on Friday 28th of December 2012 06:31:39 PM
Old 12-28-2012
This kind of problem always seems so easy until you try. I've made many attempts, but they're never quite satisfactory. I haven't found any kind of general solutions that humans can't break, and trying to fix up the corners just makes it easier to confuse.

Imagine this sequence of files for instance.

Code:
file1.jpg
file2.jpg
...
file8.jpg
file9.bmp
file10.jpg

Is it part of the sequence, or is it not? It's ambiguous.

Or how about this one:

Code:
cover.jpg
asd1.jpg
asd2.jpg
asd3.jpeg

Does cover belong at the beginning or the end, and how would you tell a program to know this? Are you sure the cover will always belong at the beginning?

Should we assume the jpeg is a typo because they have the same prefix of asd? Where does the prefix start, where does it end, and how is it deliniated from the rest?

Or this sequence:

Code:
cover for some file name containing 1234.jpg
some file name containing 1234 #1.jpg
some file name containing 1234 #1.jpg
some file name containing 1234 #1.jpg
...
some file name containing 1234 #365.jpg

Do 'cover for some file name containing 1234' and 'some file name containing 1234 #' belong to the same sequence or not? Should # be considered part of the name?

And what happens when you get a sequence like this?

Code:
1a.jpg
1b.jpg
1c.jpg
1.jpg
2.jpg
3.jpg
4.jpg

You end up tacking on special case after special case after special case onto your program to handle all these special things -- and then you get something like this thrown at you:

Code:
file1a.jpg
file2a.jpg
file3a.jpg
file4a.jpg

Or maybe the files all have 'cover' in their name so they all end up being 'special' and jammed in first in no particular order, or even skipped. Or this, or that, or a million other things.

If humans would just name their files in rational, consistent, predictable ways, they wouldn't need reordering. But all too often human context is needed to explain where things belong.
 

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

mrename

MRENAME(1)						      General Commands Manual							MRENAME(1)

NAME

       mrename - program to rename files

SYNOPSIS

       mrename 'pattern' prefix [option]

DESCRIPTION

       This  manual  page  documents  briefly the mrename command.  This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the
       original program does not have a manual page.

       mrename is a tool for easy and automatic renaming of many files.  The 'pattern' is the pattern to search files to rename (quoted  to  avoid
       that  bash  resolve  it),  and prefix is the prefix that will be added to the name of each file. The two alternative options for copying or
       moving files in the new name are explained below.  All parameters are needed, and you have to stay and launch the script in the same direc-
       tory of the files to be renamed. The program should be able to write in this directory.

OPTIONS

       There are only the following three options.

       -c     The option -c will copy each file with the new filename.

       -m     The option -m will move each file in the new filename.

       -h     Display help.

EXAMPLE

       If  you	have  a  directory  with two jpeg images prof.jpg and forp.jpg and you want to add them a prefix like item0, item1 etc..  (that is
       item0prof.jpg, item1forp.jpg etc..) do this:

	  cd /path/to/the/images
	  mrename '*.jpg' item -c

       to copy each matching file into another with the new name

	  mrename '*.jpg' item -m

       to rename each file without keeping a copy with the previous name

Word-Wide-Web:
       http://alfalinux.sourceforge.net/mrename.php3

AUTHOR
:
       Giancarlo -rofus- Erra
       e-mail: rofus@mindless.com

       This manual page was written by Dr. Guenter Bechly <gbechly@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). It is
       distributed under the GPL just like mrename itself.

								 October  22, 2000							MRENAME(1)
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