UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

On some Linux systems there is already a "rename" command for just this purpose.
If you don't have it, then a script will certainly suffice.

Just keep in mind the ksh tricks that I talked about back here.
for example:

Code:

$ var=temp.php3
$ echo ${var%.*}
temp
$ echo ${var%.*}.php
temp.php

It makes things much easier and faster...

I think the easiest and simplest thing to do is to find all this range of files you want to rename and then do the mv command on them.

Or

you can put only the wanted files in a specific directory and then do as you please



for file in (directory where the files are in)
do
mv $file $file.php
done

Another way to do this is to generate a shell script via awk, "review" the shell script appropriately and then execute
the script.

1- the awk file gen_rename.awk
{
print "cp -p" $0 , substr($0,1,length($0)-length(old_ext))".bak"
print "mv "$0, substr($0,1,length($0)-length(old_ext))new_ext
}

2- call find and awk (whith a path to the awk with the -v FLAG)
find / -name \*<old_ext> | /usr/xpg4/bin/awk -v new_ext=".php" -v old_ext=".php3" -f gren_rename.awk > rename.sh

3- more rename.sh

4- if you are sure
ksh ./rename.sh

Note: other example of gen_rename.awk is:
{
print "cp -p" $0 , substr($0,1,length($0)-length(old_ext))".bak"
print "if [ ! -f "substr($0,1,length($0)-length(old_ext))new_ext "]"
print "then"
print "mv "$0, substr($0,1,length($0)-length(old_ext))new_ext
print "else"
print "echo ERROR the file exit: "substr($0,1,length($0)-length(old_ext))\ new_ext
print "echo the file $0 was not moved"
print "fi"
}

TRUEST,

Your example would APPEND ".php" to the end of the original filename not replace the .php3 with .php

You are not accounting for the old extension needing to be removed.

PETER,

You need to look at the cut command that I have below. You can use the same options but use the -f 1,2 so that it will take the first two "fields" defined by the . as the delimeter!



Here is my contribution.

for name in `ls *.php3`
do
name1=` echo $name| cut -f 1 -d . `
mv $name1.php3 $name1.php
done

This will use the . which is the "field separator" for the first and last portions of the filename.

Here are my filenames that I used.
1one.php3
2.php3
3.php3
4four.php3


It will work on different length filenames provided they only have one . in the name.

Excellent Kelam - thanks.

If the file name have more tan one dot, use the awk.

Why such complexity???

Code:

ls *.oldext | awk -F"." '{printf "%s.oldext %s.newext\n",$1,$1}' | xargs -n 2 mv -f

I leave it up to the reader to transform that into a shell script using paramters for oldext and newext.

Been using the above pipeline for the past few months during upgrades of Follett on Unix servers. Works great, and quick too.