%:s/\([0-9]*\)_\(*\)/\2 will not rename files

Question

can someone please edit %:s/\([0-9]*\)_\(*\)/\2 so that i can rename files. for example, if file name is 5555_word_word.jpg, then I want the file name to be word_word.jpg. i feel like I am so close!

Answer 1

Try this:

:%s/\([0-9]*\)_\(.*\)/\2

The . will match any character (part of the second grouping) and the * will greedily match any amount of them. Your original regex was missing that directive. This will also rename files of the form _word_word.txt to word_word.txt. If you want to require digits to match (probably a good idea), use:

:%s/\([0-9]\+\)_\(.*\)/\2

The \+ directive means to match 1 or more instances.

Answer 2

You may want to simplify and have it just delete leading numbers and the underscore:

s/^[0-9]+_//

Answer 3

Your version is fine but you forgot a period and you should probably anchor it to the beginning of a line or to a word boundary using either ^ or \<.

:%s/^\([0-9]*\)_\(.*\)/\2/

You can use \v to clean up some of those slashes.

:%s/\v^([0-9]*)_(.*)/\2/

You can use \ze to avoid capture groups.

:%s/^[0-9]*_\ze.*//

But the trailing .* is superfluous, because it matches anything. So use Seth's version, it's the simplest.