a.txt a2.txt bdf.txt akfler.txt
=>
a.pdf a2.pdf bdf.pdf akfler.pdf

??

What is it you're trying to do? Create a pdf?

If you use a program to convert text files to pdf files then this can easily be done.

You could download txt2pdf from http://www.sanface.com
The program is shareware though. I don't know if there are any totally free versions out there.

Then you could do something like:

ls *.txt | xargs txt2pdf

sorry...
it was much vague..

i wanted to copy abc.a => abc.b
for all *.a files in a directory..

thank you

Try chcase downloadable from http://www.blemished.net/chcase

If you're just trying to convert the extension, here you go:

ls *.txt |while read oldname;do
newname=`echo $oldname |sed 's/.txt/.pdf/'`
mv $oldname $newname
done


Enjoy,

Matt

k.. thx..

i was wondering if i can do that without writing scripts ..(just with options )

thank you anyway..

I believe that the 'rename' command might do that for you. I remember being frustrated because I try to use it to do a simple renaming (as you would with mv), but it's actually more powerful than that.

Thanks Faecal for the info. It was really a new information for me.
I was checking the command but in between I noticed an interseting thing

$ls
a.txt b.txt c.txt
$rename .txt .pdf *.txt
$ls
a.pdf b.pdf c.pdf
$rename *.pdf *.txt *.pdf
$ls
b.txt c.txt

Where is a.txt ???????????????

I was able to reproduce that problem. Your second use of rename is incorrect -

$rename *.pdf *.txt *.pdf
$rename .pdf .txt *.pdf

Remember, it's only in the last argument that you're specifying a group of files. The first two are simply text to be searched for and replaced.

That odd behaviour where one file is lost only occurred for me when I used your incorrect command. I cannot explain the mechanism that led to the loss of the file, but it's not important, since the command with the extra asterisks shouldn't have worked properly anyway.

Ok I know that I have used the "so -called" wrong syntax for the command rename. But Does anybody know where had the file a.pdf gone and why did it happen to that file only?

If you want a gui, krename comes with pretty high praise.

Speck