Hello
I've more than 20 files all files' name contain word such as "website.com"
i need to remove this word by scripts i this for looping should do it but have no idea to use it. example:-
file1-www.website.com.mpg
file2-www.website.com.mp3
file3-www.website.com.mpg
file4-www.website.com.avi
would like to rename it to
file1.mpg
file2.mp3
file3.mpg
file4.avi

Thanks in advace

Hi,

Here's one one of doing this:

ls -1 *www* | sed 's/\(.*\)\(-www.website.com\)\(.*\)/mv \1\2\3 \1\3/' | bash

The ls -1 *www* part should list all the appropriate files. The output is piped to sed, and using backreferencing the following output is created for each file: mv fileX.www.website.com.extension fileX.extension. Sed's output is given to bash, which performs the actual move.

Try using the command without the | bash part first to see if the output is correct/what you want.

In case backreferencing is new to you: The part between \( and \) in the searchstring can be represented as \1 (\2 \3 etc) in the replacement part. Your original files is broken up into 3 parts: The filename (file1, file2 etc), the part that you don't need (www.web....com) and the extension.

Hope this helps.

Actually, why not just use "rename"

Hi,

That's indeed a lot cleaner and much more resource friendly!

The sad part is: I do know the rename command exists....... Well, at least the one-liner I gave is creative

I created linux2man's files, then tried the above, which gave an error. A slightly modified command did it:
(My input bold, correct command green.) This is on Ubuntu Dapper, and "rename" runs (through 2 symlinks) /usr/bin/rename -> /etc/alternatives/rename -> usr/bin/prename, Perl script by Larry Wall and Robin Barker. I take "alternatives" as a hint that other "rename"s exist, and SciYro probably has a different one.

yes, im using the one that ships with util-linux, the perl version isn't compatible as you can tell, but with regular expressions its also a bit more complex and flexible. The one that ships with util-linux just so happens to not have help output, and appears to take no options anyways.

FRONTENDS:

I think it exist krename

and

gnome-commander has powerful advanced rename tool (ctrl m)

Enjoy !

This sed like it like you need to drink lot of wine to be able to understand or read it ... indeed . rename is cool.
sed is quite not easy for noobs

It is like replacing some txt1 in one contentfile by txt2, it is not easy to avoid \ / \ / /// , no ?

Hi,

If this is the first time you encounter sed it's not one of the easiest examples

In the example the backslashes are indeed needed and cannot be avoided because (, ), 1, 2 and 3 are special (related to backreferencing). If you do not use the backslashes sed sees them as normal characters.

If you are interested in knowing more about sed:

1) Pick up the Oreily book (Sed&Awk),
2) IBM sed part I
3) IBM sed part II
4) seder's grab bag
5) sed $home

BTW: it's too bad that rename comes in different flavors, I tried SciYro command on my box before and it worked (with your example files). I also have the one that comes with util-linux.