Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi RudiC

Like every word in the string needs to be validated?

Every item that you deem necessary for the correct syntax of your file names; words, underscore count, string length, whatever...

Thanks Rudi...

Hi Don

Can you please throw some more light on the code which u shared. Its working but removing all the rest of the files. Can the "*" in the for loop be replaced with anything else?

Chatwithsaurav,

You simply have not provided us with sufficient information about the legal names and formats of your file for us to assist you at present.

The examples you provide are just random examples. Unless you can rigidly formulate your requirements and communicate them, nobody can help you.

Hi Murphy

Well the thing is that I need to "rename" two files in the correct format.
The correct format are : "advext_OK_0315_mem_rule_firings.txt" and "advext_OK_0315_rule_thirdparty.txt"
Now the challenge is that when the user places them in a predefined directory, he/she places it with a different name. Example : "ad_OK_0315_me_rul_firin.txt" or "adv_0315_OK_m_rule_fir.txt" or "adv_OK_1503_m_r_firing.txt" or "ad_OK_1214_r_third.txt" or "OK_0315_ad_r_thirdparty.txt" .... etc...

The unix shell script will "validate" and "eliminate" these errors and rename them in the correct format. Also the script should accept input parameters in
places where there is plan name and run qual. Plan name is : OK (There are other plan names as well) and Run Qual is : 0315 (MMYY format - This will change everymonth)

Making assumptions on what the user wanted is always critical to be truely the same.
Specialy regarding the deletion/moving/renaming of files, i'd only assume on creating new files/names.

Then, as RudiC proposed, run a validity check, like
One could turn around the approach... (imo safer approach)
hth

EDIT - Question:
Why, other than a simple char-typo-mix, would they write a different formated string.
You could show an example input (to the user, before they enter the input).

Did you not read my post?

The first line of that post in bold red text warned you not to run those examples. The last line of that post explicitly said that the second script would destroy all but one of the files in that directory. What it does is correct the name of every regular file in your current directory with a name ending in .txt to the name that you said the user should have named the file in the first place.

As many of us have repeatedly stated: Unless you can define what constitutes a valid name and specify how to map an invalid name to the "correct" valid name, that script is the best we can do (and IT IS NOT SUITABLE FOR ANY USE other than to show that we don't have enough information to do what you seem to want).

All that you have really told us is that you have a directory that contains some files. Some of the filenames are bad. There is one good name (advext_OK_2015_mem_rule_firings.txt). There may be other good names. Fix the bad filenames.

Our crystal balls aren't that good.