hi

I have the following folder structure:

folder1
subfolder1.1
subfolder1.2
subfolder1.3

folder2
subfolder2.1
subfolder2.2
subfolder2.3

where is "subfolder1.1" is a subfolder under "folder1"
I have 2 files in each subfolder: "index.html", and "index_new.html"

I would like to rename "index_new.html" to "index.html", and by doing so to overwrite "index.html", and be left with only the "index.html" file (which content is what was in "index_new.html") in one command line.

this is basically what the "mv" command is used for.

why isn't this working for it:
mv folder[0-9]/subfolder*/index_new.html folder[0-9]/subfolder*/index.html

should I be using the "$0" var or am I completely off track with this?

Thanks

If the mv command is given several arguments (filenames) the last one has to be a directory name. You are trying to move all the index__new.html files to one file.

Try 'find' or 'foreach'

John

john is right. the reason is that one of the first things the shell does is expand the command line, so file[1-3] is expanded to file1 file2 file3, the mv command is then passed a long list of filenames. i actually have written a small script that allows you to do what your looking for. if you have a file containing all the old filenames, and onother containing all the new filenames, it will go down the list and move one to the other. i dont have time right now, but if you want i can post the script later.

Try the following:

dirs=`find folder1 folder2 -type d`;

$dirs now contains al list of all subfolders in folder1 and folder2 (note: also
subfolders of subfolders).
So, we must now try to issue a "mv" command for all subfolders in $dirs

In Bash, this is something like:

for i in $dirs; do
mv ${i}/index_new.html ${i}/index.html
done

In this case, it's easy to verify if your "mv" commands are correct before actually
executing them. You can accomplish this by enclosing the "mv" command in an "echo" command
like:
echo "mv ${i}/index_new.html ${i}/index.html"
and running that in the same loop as above.
If the "mv" commands that are printed to your screen seem OK to you, execute the loop
as it is written above (without the echo).

Or:

for i in $dirs; do
cd ${i}
mv index_new.html index.html
cd -;
done

or this in the root directory

...if this thread is still alive.