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Rename multiple files, changing prefix, extension and dropping characters

 
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# 8  
Old 05-17-2012
cat shows the commands.

sh runs the commands.
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# 9  
Old 05-17-2012
I suppose that's OK if your filenames have absolutely no chance of containing whitespace or special characters. It's not good practice to parse ls or evaluate user data.

Probably the command was copied wrong. Did you try post #3?

proof of concept
Code:
$ ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 mute mute 0 May 17 17:34 bad file?echo fail
$ ls -1 | sed 's/\(^0\{1,4\}\)\([0-9][0-9]\)\(.*\)/mv & newa0\2.abc/ ' | sh
sh: bad: not found
fail

Last edited by neutronscott; 05-17-2012 at 02:33 PM..
# 10  
Old 05-17-2012
The filenames are the same every day but I've been reading about concerns using 'ls' so now I'm a little worried. There are other files in this directory, though they are not named anything similar in prefix or extension. When running
Code:
ls -1 | sed 's/\(^0\{1,4\}\)\([0-9][0-9]\)\(.*\)/mv & newa0\2.abc/ ' | sh

it returns
Code:
sh: line 7: ./(other file names here): Permission denied

I reran this
Code:
for file in 0000*; do new=${file#0000}; new=newa0${new:0:2}.abc; echo mv "$file" "$new"; done



and I was copying the $ at the beginning before but when I dropped that it allows me to see the correct results...But to use this, I'm still not understanding how I then get it to run to actually change the file names rather than just showing it?
Last edited by Scrutinizer; 05-17-2012 at 03:47 PM.. Reason: code tags, formatting
# 11  
Old 05-17-2012
Oh, sorry. remove the word "echo".
This User Gave Thanks to neutronscott For This Post:
bbmcg
# 12  
Old 05-17-2012
AWESOME. THAT'S IT!!!!

Appreciate all the help from everyone. It all helps, and will be useful as I try to piece this stuff together going forward.

Sorry for so many questions, appears I have a lot of work to do to get up to speed as a "Dummie"
 
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