Hi all,

I am a new convert to ubuntu after years of SuSE and Fedora. A few things don't show the behaviour I am used to. One of them is the 'rename' utility.

In a directory I have two files, abc.cfg and abc.hdr. I want to rename them to def.cfg and def.hdr using 'rename'. In other distributions I used

$ rename abc def *

and everything was fine. In ubuntu however I get error 255 and the following message:

Bareword "abc" not allowed while "strict subs" in use at (eval 1) line 1.

What does this mean and how do I fix this?

Thanks,
f

Hi,

Could it be that rename is aliased in Ubuntu?

alias to find out.

On my box rename is an elf 32-bit executable (file `which rename` to find out), the error you show looks like a 'script' error, not an executable binary error.

Hi druuna,

thanks for you suggestion, no alias set however. I traced the rename executable and found that it is in fact a perl script called prename. The first line in this script reads

use strict;

I uncommented this line but to no effect. Now I get

Unquoted string "abc" may clash with future reserved word at (eval 1) line 2.
Unquoted string "abc" may clash with future reserved word at (eval 2) line 2.
Unquoted string "abc" may clash with future reserved word at (eval 3) line 2.
Unquoted string "abc" may clash with future reserved word at (eval 4) line 2.
Unquoted string "abc" may clash with future reserved word at (eval 5) line 2.

Any ideas? If not, I may just copy over the rename executable from a different distro.

All best,
fogswimmer

Hi,

I don't have prename on my box, only the binary version I mentioned earlier. But if a perl script only works if you don not use 'use strict' (and/or 'use warnings') it cannot be, and probably isn't, a good perl script (my 2c). Both should be used. Always.

Only thing I can come up with: Is the usage the same as the 'real' rename (man prename)?

Hi druuna,

Thanks again. Indeed, the usage seems to differ -- I should have thought of that before. prename is expecting a perl expression. While that may be a useful in some situations it isn't for me, because I need my scripts to run on more than one box and distro. So I'll get rid of the ubuntu prename in favour of the real thing.

Do you happen to know what package rename comes with? Is it in coreutils?

Best,
fogswimmer

Hi,

I just found this thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi....php?p=2255346

which has the answer. Sorry for not finding this before asking. Thanks for your time all the more.

fogswimmer