The final line actually handles the renaming. This change will be applied to all files in the group. In the third example, again we add text: the text " Suffix" is added to the end of the file name. In the second example, we add text: the text "Prefix " is added to the start of the file name. In the first example, we substitute text: the text string "old" is replaced by the text string "new" (if, but only if, the text "old" is present in the file's name). SetLocal EnableDelayedExpansionīy defining the variable name %%j and associating it with all current files (*.*), we can use the variable in a for loop to represent each file in the current directory.Įvery iteration (or pass) through the loop thereby processes a different file from the defined group (which might equally have been any group, e.g. The following uses a variable with a for loop to rename a group of files. Renaming all files in the current directory.Recursively Visit Directories in a Directory Tree.Looping through each line in a files set.Differences between Batch (Windows) and Terminal (Linux).Deprecated batch commands and their replacements.Changing Directories and Listing their Contents.Bypass arithmetic limitations in batch files.* - *.mp3' '#3 - #2.mp3'īoth rename and mmv have a -n option that lets you trial-run the re-namings. There's also an mmv command (provided by an Ubuntu package of the same name) that works with shell globs instead of regular expressions and is often easier for simple re-arrangments like this ex.: mmv '*. Where pattern is a Perl Compatible Regular Expression (PCRE). On current Ubuntu systems, there should be a Perl-based rename command that can operate on the dirents directly: rename 's/pattern/replacement/' *.mp3 (In the 1970s, you'd have used backticks like `echo "$i" | sed -E s/pattern/replacement/` for command substitution - they're deprecated now, although still supported.) Note the use of double quotes, without which the command will break on filenames that contain whitespace or other shell-special characters. Note that a single command cannot accept standard input from both a pipe and a redirection - that's an "ambiguous redirect". If you want to use shell redirection rather than piping to supply standard input to sed. Or for i in *.mp3 do mv - "$i" "$(sed -E 's/pattern/replacement/' <<< "$i")" done If you want to rename files by manipulating their names using sed, you'd need to capture the resulting standard output stream in a command substitution and pass the result as a destination argument to the mv command ex.: for i in *.mp3 do mv - "$i" "$(echo "$i" | sed -E 's/pattern/replacement/')" done In addition, GNU sed treats an argument after -i as an optional backup suffix, so that when you write sed -iE, the E is no longer parsed as a flag indicating Extended Regular Expression syntax - which breaks your capture grouping. Sed is operating on a stream of bytes read from the standard input stream, rather than on the file's directory entry - so editing "in place" makes no sense. If there's a problem with them, too, please let me know. How do I modify a directory listing in bulk today? As you can see, I finally do have my expressions properly worked out, at least in sed. gives a blank screen filled with the normal empty file entries, and the bottom line shows this: "." is a directory I don't seem to be able to do that today. )(.*) *( - )(.*) *(.mp3)/\4\3\2\5/' <$i done īack in the 1970s, I was able to edit the directory directly in Unix, as the directory listing itself is a file. Archie Bell
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