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Question

Batch renaming files in unix and rollback

Answer 1

A:

You can do it like that:

for f in *.xml.ab; do
    mv $f `echo $f | sed 's/\.ab$//g'`
done

kogut 2010-10-26 15:53:54

ah, cool, much easier :-) thanks !

Ashish 2010-10-26 16:09:36

You need double quotes around variable and command substitutions, and `echo` is only reliable if the file name doesn't start with `-` and doesn't contain a backslash. `mv --- "$f" "$(printf %s "$f" | sed 's/\.ab$//g')"` would be ok, but [codaddict's answer](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4025438/batch-renaming-files-in-unix-and-rollback/4025499#4025499) is both conceptually simpler and easier to get right.

Gilles 2010-10-26 21:03:10

Answer 2

+1 A:

If you are using bash you can do:

for f in *.xml.ab; do
    mv "$f" "${f%.ab}.SD"
done

or just use the rename command as:

rename 's/ab$/SD/' *.xml.ab

codaddict 2010-10-26 15:59:09

Thanks, it works for me :-)

Ashish 2010-10-26 16:08:01

By d way, it works without "" in the MOVE command.

Ashish 2010-10-26 16:11:22

But if your filenames had spaces it would fail without the `"`. So always enclose filenames in `"`.

codaddict 2010-10-26 16:13:49

Note that this `rename` command comes from a Perl distribution and is not a standard unix command. Debian (and derived distributions such as Ubuntu) ships it as part of its perl package, but it's unlikely to be available elsewhere.

Gilles 2010-10-26 21:00:27

Also, this needs to be `mv -- "$f" "${f%.ab}.SD"` unless you know that file names don't begin with a `-`.

Gilles 2010-10-26 21:03:43

@codaddict, ah, valuable tip :-)

Ashish 2010-10-27 13:36:32

@Gilles, you mean if the filename starts with -1234.xml.ab, then we should use mv -- "$f" "${f%.ab}.SD" to append it with "SD" ? Is that what you mean ?

Ashish 2010-10-28 13:08:48

@Ashish: Yes. Normally, an argument that begins with `-` is an option (or several options). For example here `mv` would consider `1`, `2`, and so on to be options. The argument `--` signals the end of options, so with `mv -- "$f" "${f%.ab}.SD"`, the value of `f` cannot be mistaken for an option. This is not specific to `mv`, most unix commands behave in this way. Therefore `--` is fairly common in well-written scripts (so that the script doesn't misbehave if a file name happens to begin with `-`).

Gilles 2010-10-28 17:12:56

@Gilles, thanks for well explained reason :-) Do you advise any good shell-script book which i can refer to :-) That should have well explained basic concepts, important tips, use of regex in scripting, talks about various shells, use of each command and its application :-)

Ashish 2010-10-29 14:42:00

@Ashish: No, sorry, I learnt by example and spec-reading, but I'd be incapable of explaining how to tell the good examples from the bad (shell scripting is full of pitfalls like the ones you've seen here). There are a couple of threads on the topic on SO.

Gilles 2010-10-29 21:13:03

Answer 3

A:

I'm not clear if you want to rename foo.xml.ab -> foo.xml or foo.xml.ab -> foo.xml.SD

foo.xml.ab -> foo.xml

for f in *.xml.ab; do
    mv "$f" "${f%.ab}"
done

foo.xml.ab -> foo.xml.SD

for f in *.xml.ab; do
    mv "$f" "${f/.ab/.SD}"
done

JohnCC 2010-10-26 16:02:31

@John, it the second code that you wrote [foo.xml.ab -> foo.xml.SD] im trying :-) Thanks

Ashish 2010-10-26 16:08:59

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