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Full Discussion: Renaming Multiple Files by removing characters
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Renaming Multiple Files by removing characters Post 302914430 by bakunin on Monday 25th of August 2014 10:50:21 PM
Old 08-25-2014
@junior-helper: thread opener stated he uses Korn shell, so chances are this is not a Linux system at all. There is a good chance that the "rename"-command is not there.

Quote:
Originally Posted by pchegoor
I would like to rename Multiple files in a Unix Directory using Ksh Command.

Eg ATT8-2011-10-01 00:00:00-MSA-IMM-SINGLE_AND_FAMILY_COVERAGE-DED-$2000-X114817.PDF

needs to be renamed as

ATT8-2011-10-01-MSA-IMM-SINGLE_AND_FAMILY_COVERAGE-DED-$2000-X114817.PDF
Basically this is a simple job: create a loop in which you run a command mv "$oldname" "$newname" in which you rename one file after the other:

Code:
find /path/to/your/files -type <f -name optional-file-mask> |\
while read OLDNAME ; do
     mv "$OLDNAME" "$NEWNAME"
done

Which leaves the question where "$NEWNAME" comes from. You could use any text-modifying utility (sed, awk, ....) of which Unix is so rich of to construct the new name from the old. This utility would be called once for every single file and this would add a lot of overhead to your script, which should be avoided.

Fortunately the shell itself offers a great way to modify strings too, without having to resort to an external utility: the "parameter expansion" or "variable epansion". The syntax looks awkward at first, but its execution speed beats every external utility by some order of magnitude. Twenty lines of this is perhaps still way faster than a single awk- (sed-, ...) call.

I suggest having a look into the man page for details, here is the solution for your problem as you stated it: remove a middle " 00-00-00" from a string:

Code:
find /path/to/your/files -type <f -name optional-file-mask> |\
while read OLDNAME ; do
     chBegin="${OLDNAME%% 00:00:00*}"
     chEnd="${OLDNAME##* 00:00:00}"
     NEWNAME="${chBegin}${chEnd}"
     print - "OLDNAME: $OLDNAME"
     print - "chBegin: $chBegin    chEnd: $chEnd"
     print - "NEWNAME: $NEWNAME"

     print - mv "$OLDNAME" "$NEWNAME"
done

Run with the print-statements to see how it works, remove them once you feel comfortable with the output.

I hope this helps.

bakunin
 

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

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)
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