File name manipulation with tr, concatination troubles

goofyheadedpunk · 06-14-2004, 05:28 PM

I apologize, but this is a pretty weak programming question. I just didn't think it fit very well into the the Linux-General forum.

In many of my files I had the pattern " - ", that is whitespace hyphen whitespace. I didn't like having whitespaces in my file names so I used tr to change whitespaces to underscores and hyphens also to underscores.

I'd then hoped to use tr to change "___" to simply "_" in the same manner that I'd done my earlier manipulations. This however does not work. Rather than searching for the entire ___ pattern tr searches for just _ . So nothing changes.

Does anyone know how to force tr to search for exact strings, or even if it will?

rkef · 06-14-2004, 06:07 PM

Have you tried the -d option to 'tr'?

Also, try 'sed'... it's fun.

goofyheadedpunk · 06-14-2004, 06:11 PM

Yes.

No, it doesn't work.

Hko · 06-14-2004, 06:25 PM

Code:

shell$ echo "abc - def ghi---jkl" | sed 's/[ -][ -]*/_/g'
abc_def_ghi_jkl

arvind_sv · 06-14-2004, 08:47 PM

If you want to really use tr itself, you're looking for the -s option:

Code:

$ echo "abc___def__g" | tr -s _
abc_def_g
$ echo "abc - def _ g" | tr -s ' -' '__'
abc_def_g

Arvind

arvind_sv · 06-14-2004, 08:54 PM

Something I forgot to mention. If you want to use "-" as the first character, escape it.

Code:

$ echo "abc - def _ g" | tr -s '\- ' '__'
$ echo "abc - def ghi---jkl" | tr -s '\- ' '__'
$ echo "abc - def ghi---jkl" | tr -s ' -' '__'

Arvind

goofyheadedpunk · 06-14-2004, 09:17 PM

The -s option is exactly what I needed.

Geez, sometimes I think I go blind. I read the man page over and over and kept missing it.

Thanks for all the responses.

goofyheadedpunk · 07-05-2004, 12:06 PM

I've been busy for quite a while, so that's why this follow-up question was a half month in the making.

As I've said, I'm renaming a bunch of files. I use find to locate those files with the specific attributes I want to change and then kick each found file into

Code:

#!/bin/bash

file_name=$1

real_name=`basename "${file_name}"`
path=`dirname "${file_name}"`

echo ${real_name} | tr -s "-" " " | tr -s " " "_"=cut_name

echo ${path}/${cut_name}

Right now I'm only testing, which is why it just echos out. Also, I haven't tried to test accross directories, so if you notice a glaring flaw with regards to that, please point it out.

My main problem is that I need ${path} directly stuck to ${cut_name}, witht the / in between, but that doesn't happen. I get cut_name echoed out first, and then path.

I can't figure out why, which makes it glaringly obvious that I'm an awful programmer and should just stick to math.

I need help.

arvind_sv · 07-05-2004, 08:40 PM

Hi,

You were not very clear. Answer some questions for me and let's see what to do.

Quote:

As I've said, I'm renaming a bunch of files. I use find to locate those files with the specific attributes I want to change and then kick each found file into

What attributes, specifically?

Quote:

Code:

echo ${real_name} | tr -s "-" " " | tr -s " " "_"=cut_name

This won't work. It should be:

Code:

cutname=`echo ${real_name} | tr -s "- " " _"`

Quote:

My main problem is that I need ${path} directly stuck to ${cut_name}, witht the / in between, but that doesn't happen. I get cut_name echoed out first, and then path.

What do you mean, "stuck"? Do you want "$path/$cut_name"? What's the problem?
Give me an example of what you're trying to do? That is, given a filename, with path, what output do you expect from the script?

Arvind

suchi_s · 07-06-2004, 02:39 AM

tr " " "_" < translate

translate is the name of the file containing contents