The syntax for the rename command is:
rename [ -v ] [ -n ] [ -f ] perlexpr [ files ]
-v : verbose
-n : test run
perlexpr: perl regular expression
Example 1: change "*.htm" to "*.html"$ rename -n ’s/\.htm$/\.html/’ *.htm
s - substitute : s/old/new
$ - end of string. That is search for only '.htm', not '.html'
Example 2: change filenames that have the pattern ########.JPG (8 numbers and capital .JPG) to something like BeachPics_########.jpg
$ rename -n 's/(\d{8})\.JPG$/BeachPics_$1\.jpg/' *.JPG
00001111.JPG renamed as BeachPics_00001111.jpg
00001112.JPG renamed as BeachPics_00001112.jpg
00001113.JPG renamed as BeachPics_00001113.jpg
\d{8} : count 8 digits
(\d{8}) : Parenthesis is meant to save this as an argument for later use
$1 : insert the string from the first set of parenthesis - in this case the 8 digits
$ rename -n 's/\d{5}(\d{3})\.JPG$/BeachPics_$1\.jpg/' *.JPG
00000123.JPG renamed as BeachPics_123.jpg
00000124.JPG renamed as BeachPics_124.jpg
00000125.JPG renamed as BeachPics_125.jpg
Example 3: replace 'weight_' to 'ffn_wt_' in all the files
$ rename -n 's/weight_*/ffn_wt_/g' *.txt
weight_far.txt renamed as ffn_wt_far.txt
weight_near.txt renamed as ffn_wt_near.txt
weight_top.txt renamed as ffn_wt_top.txt
Posts
