unwanted chars in filename

peten · 08-06-2014, 09:09 AM

Hi

I have some 650 files all with names such as "2014_NGS_ (99).jpg" i need to remove the ( ) from the names but i have tried every thing i can find i can remove the leading one but not the trailing one any one got any ideas .

I dont fancy renaming 653 files by hand really

Thanks

Pete ..

TB0ne · 08-06-2014, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peten

Hi
I have some 650 files all with names such as "2014_NGS_ (99).jpg" i need to remove the ( ) from the names but i have tried every thing i can find i can remove the leading one but not the trailing one any one got any ideas .

I dont fancy renaming 653 files by hand really

There is the linux "rename" command, which accepts regular expressions and can do this...you can also do it with a one-liner:

Code:

for i in *\(*\)*; do j=`echo $i |sed -e 's/[()]//g'`; mv "$i" "$j"; done

peten · 08-06-2014, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TB0ne

There is the linux "rename" command, which accepts regular expressions and can do this...you can also do it with a one-liner:

Code:

for i in *\(*\)*; do j=`echo $i |sed -e 's/[()]//g'`; mv "$i" "$j"; done

Thats the one many thanks problem solved

Pete

TB0ne · 08-06-2014, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peten

Thats the one many thanks problem solved
Pete

You're welcome...and by way of explanation to anyone else who stumbles upon this, it's essentially a shell-script that:

Reads a list of files in the current directory into the $i variable: for i in *$*$*;
Put the $i through sed to strip out the parens, and assign the new string to be $j: do j=`echo $i |sed -e 's/[()]//g'`;
Move the file from one name to another: mv "$i" "$j"; done

Replace the "mv" with whatever other commands you want. Change the regular expression in the sed command (the [()] ) to do something else if needed, or string more commands together in there or change them entirely. The logic still works.

sycamorex · 08-06-2014, 12:42 PM

You might also want to look at a small utility called 'detox'
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2010/01...me-file-names/

szboardstretcher · 08-06-2014, 12:43 PM

This removes any characters that aren't letters or numbers from the filename.

Code:

rename 's/[^a-zA-Z0-9]//' *.jpg

TB0ne · 08-06-2014, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sycamorex

You might also want to look at a small utility called 'detox'
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2010/01...me-file-names/

That's a new one for me....I've gone along with either rename or the aforementioned one-liner to do the deeds. Good find.

Quote:

Originally Posted by szboardstretcher

This removes any characters that aren't letters or numbers from the filename.

Code:

rename 's/[^a-zA-Z0-9]//' *.jpg

Nice regex example....always loved how much power you can pack into a command with them. And how easily you can bork things with it, too, if you're not careful.

szboardstretcher · 08-06-2014, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TB0ne

Nice regex example....always loved how much power you can pack into a command with them. And how easily you can bork things with it, too, if you're not careful.

Agreed. That's why I'm glad that some commands come with the --dry-run option, or do not make changes to files unless you tell them to specifically (sed -i for example.) And I'm always careful to use the ole online regex testers before trying something out.

http://regex101.com/
http://www.regexplanet.com/advanced/java/index.html
http://regexpal.com/

Being the ones that I frequent, to cover my Perl, Ruby, GNU, PHP and Java differences.