Shell Programming and Scripting

I'm completely new to Shell scripting and I need to make a script that renames files with names like this: "aaa-b_ccc" where aaa b and ccc can change but b is a single character into files with names like this one:

"ccc'_bbb'_aaa" where ccc', bbb', aaa' are values I set accordingly to the original values aaa,b,and ccc, but not the same values. It's not possible to "calculate" the new values so I'm planning to make some kind of a csv file where I list old value -> new value. I already figured out that I can use SED to make easier changes but I'm just not smart enough to solve my problem :P

Hope you can help me! Thanks

Sorry, but your description sounds ambiguous.
Please post an example of input filenames and output filenames, thanks. Use code tags when doing so, thanks.

filename now: "Groesse-h_Spanien.jpg"
new filename: "Spain_Size-in-km_horizontal.jpg"

many different countries, differen attributes, different stuff for the 'h' part.

PD: "Groesse" is the german word for size.

dunno why i wud use code-tags for that, theres no code in here..?

Code tags are just as useful for logs, data and other snippets, as they separate that data from describing text and enhance readability as well as they preserve special characters and if somebody has something like a colon and a closing bracket, you would get a smiley but inside tags they will not substituted. They also preserve indention etc.
Your example is very small and readable, but generally it would be nice if you use them as most other users do, in case you have more extensive data or logs, code etc. next time.
Außerdem: Das Auge ißt mit

To your problem:
How are the new strings supplied? Do you have a list or something?
How is the relation between the entries in that list to the file names? Is there a translated definition of the countries already in that list?

Alright, will use code tags for longer examples and try not to use slang I didn't even notice that I wrote 'wud', too used to doing so.

The list is not created yet and will preferably be created in an excel sheet -> can be saved as csv file then. In this list I would also specify the translation of every country and replace the country names within the script similiar to the way I replace the other parts of the filename.

Thanks for the help already!

No problem, we will get it right^^

Ok, so assuming, as the substitution and keys etc. is still not clear, I suggest the following:

Have two lists; the one that is to be created (your csv file as you said) containing the stuff that will replace the placeholders or be added to the original file names and the other one be generated by listing the files that have to be renamed. The second list could be generated by a simple ls *.jpg or something more appropriate.

There will be some key or anything needed to bring the contents of both lists into relationship. Else the substitution would just be random or in an unwanted order, and that would be the last you want to have

When having the list you could do something like:

Code:

root@box> ls -1 *jpg
groesse-h.England.jpg
groesse-h.Germany.jpg
groesse-h.Spain.jpg
groesse-h.Uruguay.jpg
root@box> ./mach.ksh
root@box> ls -1 *jpg
England_400_horizontal.jpg
Germany_200_horizontal.jpg
Spain_100_horizontal.jpg
Uruguay_150_horizontal.jpg

Here is the script:

Code:

root@box> cat mach.ksh
#!/bin/bash

# Saving and altering the Input Field Separator
OLDIFS=$IFS
IFS=";"

# Reading in the 1st list "infile" and by IFS breaking it into two variables
while read COUNTRY SIZE; do
        # Listing the current file name that is identified by "$COUNTRY" and saving it to a variable
        FILE=$(ls *${COUNTRY}.jpg)
        # Actually renaming the file
        mv $FILE ${COUNTRY}_${SIZE}_horizontal.jpg
done < infile

# Changing to altered IFS back to it's default
IFS=$OLDIFS

exit 0

This will not work 1:1 in your case as many things are still not clear yet but I hope you get the clue what I did. It should be possible to be adopted to your case.
You can play around with it with (placing variables at different positions etc.) some example data so you don't destroy things^^