bash help renaming files

kahn · 06-12-2005, 09:55 AM

Hello everybody...

I have a lot of mp3s from windows... and all of them have spaces and caps...

I want to rename all the files so that empty spaces become _ (underscores) and all the capital letters become lowercase...

Can anybody help me out? Thanks a lot!

Martin Seidl
Fc3/2.6.9-1.667

dub.wav · 06-12-2005, 10:50 AM

I don't get the point, but...

If you're using KDE, you can try krename. If not, a freshmeat search http://freshmeat.net/rename might help.

No file managers I know of has trouble handling spaces in filename, and they're not really any trouble in bash either, i.e. "Artist<tab>

carl.waldbieser · 06-12-2005, 12:02 PM

Here is a simple script that should do it. Run it in the directory you want to convert.

Code:

for name in *; do
   mv "$name" $(echo -n $name | tr [A-Z' '] [a-z_])
done

perfect_circle · 06-14-2005, 05:12 AM

in order to do this recursively and change only the mp3 that have those problems try:

Code:

find . -type f -name "*.[Mm][Pp]3" | while read name; do
   new_name=$(echo -n "${name%/*}/";echo -n "${name##*/}"|tr ' [A-Z]' '_[a-z]');
   if [ "$name" != "$new_name" ]; then
      mv "$name" "$new_name"
   fi
done

if your files contain more that one space continuously, instead of having something like this _____ in the filenames, try this in the above script:

Code:

new_name=$(echo -n "${name%/*}/";echo -n "${name##*/}"|tr -s " "|tr ' [A-Z]' '_[a-z]');

kahn · 06-16-2005, 07:04 AM

cani add this to work in multiple directories?

kahn · 06-16-2005, 07:14 AM

nevermind... hey, thanks a lot for you guys... this was helpful and educational.

you should all be knighted!

oh wait, thats only the ms devil that gets to be nighted.

perfect_circle · 06-16-2005, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by kahn
cani add this to work in multiple directories?

Since it works recursively, you can search and change all the mp3's in your disk.