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Old 05-13-2009, 07:21 PM   #1
Trap
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Insert additional characters into filenames to rename them.


First off, I apologize if this question has been asked before. I've searched but came up with no answers with the search words I used.

I have a folder with a large number of files. They are named with the following pattern:

5206.txt
5712.txt
6302.txt
7408.txt

... etc.,etc.,etc.

The first 2 digits are the year and the last 2 are the month. They are all relating to the 1900's.

I am wanting to change all the filenames via a script so they end up in this format.

1952-06.txt
1957-12.txt
1963-02.txt
1974-08.txt

... etc.,etc.,etc.

I don't seem to be good enough with bash, regex, sed, etc. to figure out how to do this. Any ideas?
 
Old 05-13-2009, 08:15 PM   #2
syg00
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Any number of ways I would think - if all the files in the current dir are of that form, for bash try something like
Code:
for i in * ; do mv $i 19${i:0:2}-${i:2} ; done
 
Old 05-13-2009, 09:21 PM   #3
ghostdog74
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if you have Python
Code:
import glob,os
for files in glob.glob("*.txt"):
    os.rename(files, "19"+files[:2]+"-"+files[2:])
 
Old 05-13-2009, 10:28 PM   #4
pixellany
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Quote:
for name in *; do newname=$(echo $name|sed -e 's/^/19/' -e 's/\(^....\)/\1-/'); mv $name $newname; done
(Just proving it can be done with SED.... Someone will surely have a more elegant SED solution, but probably NOT as elegant as the string substitution given by sygOO
 
Old 05-14-2009, 06:25 AM   #5
Trap
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Thank you all for your suggestions. They all work. I do learn from such input. I dissect the code to get an understanding of what's actually taking place and why.

I appreciate your help. Thanks again!!!
 
  


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