Renaming files doesn't work from console

Mr. Gone · 03-20-2004, 01:31 PM

When I try to rename files from a console, the command 'rename' does not work.

It happens with proper write permissions (I tried both from a normal user account and from a root console). The command exits with 0 and no errors show up; however, the name of the files remains unchanged.

On the contrary, 'mv' works, but this command does not work with several files (in the same directory; that is, using it for renaming instead of moving).

Also, I can rename files from the different file managers I use, but I have to do it one by one and I would like the convenience of being able to rename several files at the same time from a console.

Any hint would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Tinkster · 03-20-2004, 01:55 PM

Sorry ... just crawled out of bed :}

Cheers,
Tink

lfur · 03-20-2004, 02:03 PM

When using mv for renaming, you do:

mv oldname newname

and it doesn't work??

Mr. Gone · 03-20-2004, 02:50 PM

Yes, 'mv' works, but I cannot use it as a substitute of 'rename' to change the name of several files at the same time. Quoting from 'info mv': "It is an error if the last argument is not a directory and more than two files are given."

Of course, I could use 'mv' to rename/move them to another directory and then copy them back to the original directory, deleting the files with the old name, but this adds extra work to the process, and I'd really want to know why 'rename' does not behave as it should.

Many thanks for your help.

Tinkster · 03-20-2004, 02:58 PM

Give me an example of what kind of renaming
you're trying to achieve ... there's surely a simple
scripting solution :}

Cheers,
Tink

jschiwal · 03-20-2004, 03:18 PM

If you want to rename a group of files, you will need to use the find command, or a for loop to select the files.

For example, to rename all *.JPG files to *.jpg try:
for pic in *.JPG; do mv $pic ${pic%.JPG}.jpg; done

If any of the files have spaces in their names, you will need double quotes around the variables.
for pic in *.JPG; do
> mv "$pic" "${pic%.JPG}.jpg"
> done

Mr. Gone · 03-20-2004, 03:26 PM

For example, if I try your formula:

rename oldname newname

It does not work. Right now I did:

$ touch example_file.txt
$ rename example_file.txt new_file.txt

And the file kept being 'example_file.txt'. It doesn't matter if I try to rename one or more files. It doesn't work in any case.

Thanks again.

Tinkster · 03-20-2004, 03:34 PM

Have a look at this one :)

http://freshmeat.net/projects/ren/

I just tried it, using e.g.

ren "*.htm" "#1.html"

to change 4 files extensions ...

you could also do a
ren "old*.txt " "new#1.txt"

Cheers,
Tink

Bebo · 03-20-2004, 03:47 PM

The rename command in linux doesn't work as in DOS. The man page says the usage is rename <from> <to> <file>, where <from> is the string you want to rename, <to> is the string you want to rename it to, and <file> are the file(s) you want to rename. From the man page:

Code:

DESCRIPTION
       rename will rename the specified files by replacing the first occurrence of <from> in
       their name by <to>.

       For example, given the files foo1, ..., foo9, foo10, ..., foo278, the commands

              rename foo foo0 foo?
              rename foo foo0 foo??

       will turn them into foo001, ..., foo009, foo010, ..., foo278.

       And
              rename .htm .html *.htm

       will fix the extension of your html files.

Mr. Gone · 03-20-2004, 07:59 PM

Bebo, you're damn right. I had read the man page of 'rename' before, but I missed the whole point. Now I understand, and of course if you do it right it works.

Tinkster, thanks for suggesting 'ren'. It seems interesting. What I wanted to do was related with names more than extensions, as until now I used 'krename' to change the latter. But now I can change names and extensions from the command line, which I prefer.

Many thanks to all you guys for your help.