Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

I am new to Unix and am using csh to create a script where all files in a directory of a particular type are changed. As an example, if rename.csh tmp .tab .txt is entered at the command line, all of the .tab files in the tmp directory will be changed to .txt files. I have created the code to rename the files but it only changed the files in the directory that I am in. I need help finding and getting to the directory where the user wants to change the file extensions. Also, if you think my code could be improved, I would appreciate knowing how. I would really appreciate any help that you can give me. Thank you.

Here is my code so far:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/csh

set USAGE="USAGE: rename.csh NAME_OF_DIR .OLD_EXTENSION .NEW_EXTENSION"


foreach i ( *$argv[2]* )
  mv $i `echo $i | sed -n s/$argv[2]/$argv[3]/p`
else
echo $USAGE
endif
exit 0

your code doesn't show you going to the directory specified as an argument ...

#!/usr/bin/csh

set USAGE="USAGE: rename.csh NAME_OF_DIR .OLD_EXTENSION .NEW_EXTENSION"

cur=$PWD
cd $argv[1]
foreach i ( *$argv[2]* )
mv $i `echo $i | sed -n s/$argv[2]/$argv[3]/p`
else
echo $USAGE
endif
cd $cur
exit 0

Thanks, that gets me to the directory but for some reason now it only changes one of the files and not all of them. Can you help me with that?

in ksh i'd do something like this ...

Code:

#! /bin/ksh
dir=$1
oldext=$2
newext=$3

cd $dir
for file in *$oldext
do
    mv $file `echo $file | sed -n "s/$oldext/$newext/p"`
done

exit 0

Thanks but I need to use csh in this particular case so if I can get an example like that in csh I would appreciate it.

i don't know why a simple script requires csh to be used unless it is homework ... is it?