Need help creating a batch renaming script.

aerospades · 10-27-2014, 03:49 AM

Heya, guys!

I have a /ton/, and I mean a tonof photos that I have to rename, and I was wondering if there was a way to automate the process of removing the first 6 digits of every filename in a folder?

I'm using Raspbian, strangely enough, if that makes any difference!

Thanks in advance, all! <3

nisagnel · 10-27-2014, 04:32 AM

Hi aerospades,

You can use the following bash script to remove first 6 letters of all files in a directory.just change the directory path with your path in the rename_dir variable.
run the script from anywhere (if you run the script in the same directory,which you want to rename the files,it will rename this script also..i think)

#!/bin/bash
rename_dir="/root/Desktop/ton"
for file in `ls -A $rename_dir`
do
newfile=`echo $file | sed 's/^......//g'`
mv $rename_dir/$file $rename_dir/$newfile
done

Hope this will help you.

aerospades · 10-27-2014, 05:06 AM

Thanks a bunch!

Just out of curiosity, what part of it dictates how many letters are removed?

and I'm guessing that this moves the files around during the process. Is there a way to leave them where they are and just process the names? (Super limited space, big files)

Again, thanks c:

aerospades · 10-27-2014, 05:38 AM

Also, it seems to be having a spot of trouble with files that have a space in the filename!

Any way to tackle this? o:

pan64 · 10-27-2014, 05:44 AM

yes, you will find a simple solution, just remember: you need not use that construct: for file in `ls -A $rename_dir` but

Code:

ls -A $rename_dir | while read file
do
....
done

chrism01 · 10-27-2014, 05:59 AM

Re post #3: each '.' represents 1 'character' at that position. The '^' means match starting at the beginning of the string in qn.
Incidentally, 'mv' is actually the Linux rename cmd, so its an in-place cmd .

sed http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html

aerospades · 10-27-2014, 06:04 AM

Argh, I'm still not getting it, and it's spitting out errors ;__;

I can't get it to stop herniating over filename spaces D:

What would the complete script be? ;__;

nisagnel · 10-27-2014, 08:18 AM

Hi aerospades,

I will try and let you know.

aerospades · 10-27-2014, 09:16 AM

Awesome!

suicidaleggroll · 10-27-2014, 09:55 AM

A simpler approach that will also work on filenames with spaces:

Code:

for i in /root/Desktop/ton/*.jpg; do
   mv "$i" "${i:6}"
done

If you want to test it before you run it (always a good idea), put "echo" in front of the mv, eg:

Code:

echo mv "$i" "${i:6}"

Then make sure it's behaving as expected before removing the echo and running it for real.

aerospades · 10-27-2014, 09:56 PM

Hey, guys!

Finally got it working with:

Code:

 

rename_dir="/root/Desktop/ton"

#Change the for-loop separator to handle spaces:
OLDIFS=$IFS
IFS=`echo -en "\n\b"`

for file in `ls -A $rename_dir`; do
	newfile=`echo $file | sed 's/^......//g'`
	mv "$rename_dir/$file" "$rename_dir/$newfile"
done

#Restore IFS:
IFS=$OLDIFS

Thanks for the help! c:

nisagnel · 10-28-2014, 03:02 AM

Glad that you have solved.
And thanks for sharing it.

chrism01 · 10-29-2014, 02:41 AM

Re filename space(s): in *nix generally, the default convention for any prog/cmd is that input params are space separated... hence your problem.
So, spaces-in-names are syntactically legal, but, as you've seen, not advised

Frankly I've never seen one in any file supplied by a *nix supplier; either OS or App and all(?) experienced *nix techs avoid them like the plague (where possible).

suicidaleggroll · 10-29-2014, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrism01

Frankly I've never seen one in any file supplied by a *nix supplier; either OS or App and all(?) experienced *nix techs avoid them like the plague (where possible).

The only one I can think of is VirtualBox, they throw spaces all over the place.