command line newbie help! -renaming files.

mifan · 08-31-2005, 09:02 AM

I've been using KDE and Gnome for a while and am pretty comfortable with desktop and mouse clicking, but when it comes to command lines and writing scripts I'm mostly lost.

My question is: I have sequential files in a folder and I'd like to rename them from file1.jpg, file2.jpg to file 001.jpg file 002.jpg, etc. there are a lot of files, so I was hoping there is a faster way to rename files in a folder sequentially.

i tried : rename file1.jpg file001.jpg, and also renum, but it didn't work how I thought...

Also, I am planning to go to borders this weekend and purchase a book on learning linux. My time is somewhat constrained, though, so I'd like advice on which book would be able to give me a good overview of general linux commands and beginning scripting (i'm hoping to learn to make scripts so I can stream line work as well as hopefully to become adept at using linux), in a somewhat easier to understand format.

mehuljv · 08-31-2005, 09:19 AM

hi
i am not sure, but you can try out this
"rename file file00 file*.jpg" .

Mehul.

keefaz · 08-31-2005, 09:22 AM

Try :

Code:

$ ls
file1.jpg  file278.jpg  file2.jpg  file3.jpg

$ rename file file0 file?.jpg
$ rename file file0 file??.jpg

$ ls
file001.jpg  file002.jpg  file003.jpg  file278.jpg

mifan · 08-31-2005, 09:35 AM

$ ls
file1.jpg file278.jpg file2.jpg file3.jpg

$ rename file file0 file?.jpg
$ rename file file0 file??.jpg

$ ls
file001.jpg file002.jpg file003.jpg file278.jpg

that worked great!

keefaz · 08-31-2005, 09:37 AM

And the rename man page is great too

jonaskoelker · 09-01-2005, 06:06 AM

Or, for a more generalised version:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
for file in $(ls -1 file*.jpg); do
    number=$(echo $file | sed -e "s/file//" -e "s/\.jpg$//")
    mv $file file$(printf "%03d" $number).jpg
done

hth --Jonas