When trying to run the rename command on a file tree using find, I'm not getting any output from the rename command itself. The command does it's job, but nothing is output to stdout.

Let's say I run this:

find . -exec rename "s/[\']//g" '{}' \;

which removes any and all apostrophes from the filenames. It works, but there's no output from rename to tell me which files it actually changed. Needless to say, this is rather annoying. On the other hand, I can do this:

find . | rename "s/[\']//g"

Which does show me the output. But then I run across a different problem. If the rename function changes the name of a folder first, then any files nested under that folder fail to get changed. I then have to run the command a second time.

This is the first time I've tried to use the -exec option of find. Is this its regular behavior? Is there any way to force find to show me the output of the executed command?

Perhaps:

find . -exec rename -v "s/[\']//g" '{}' \;

--------------------------
Steve Stites

D'oh! Stupid me.

I completely forgot that I had aliased 'rename' to 'rename -v' a while back, so I mistakenly thought that the verbose output was the standard behavior. It figures I'd make myself look stupid asking this question.

Thanks anyway.

Not only that - don't get too used to the regex usability if you use different distros.
Try a "which rename" ...

I'm not sure I follow you syg00. The rename utility I'm using is one of the basic perl tools, and should be available just about anywhere perl is installed ('rename' is actually a link to 'prename'). If other distros or installations use something different I'm sure I'd discover it fairly quickly and learn to adapt. Besides, I only use Debian on my home systems, so it's not like I'm going to run into trouble anytime soon.

My problem here was just forgetfulness and a stupid assumption on my part.

If you believe that, you'd better stick to Debian derived distros ... I'm sure you would - however it can be a shock to find a favourite "feecher" missing though ... as you discovered.