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visio159

Member

Registered: 2008-07-03

Posts: 31

Mass renaming...using command line

hi

I can rename a folder containing files with filenames without space to another name by using this command:

i=1;for f in `ls`;do mv -v $f $i\large.png; echo $((i=i+1));done

but the thing is that if ther is a space in the name of a file then it beaks into 2 files.

How to avoid that ?

Hohoho

Member

Registered: 2007-06-23

Posts: 222

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

i=1;for f in `ls`;do mv -v "$f" "$i\large.png"; echo $((i=i+1));done

How about this?

visio159

Member

Registered: 2008-07-03

Posts: 31

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

nope it throws this error

`lemo' -> `1large.png'
2
mv: cannot stat `mika': No such file or directory
3
mv: cannot stat `singh': No such file or directory
4
`nade' -> `4large.png'
5

for file named "mika singh" "lemo" and "nade".

I think the problem lies in for f in 'ls' statement, here for takes the names delimited by space character

Procyon

Member

Registered: 2008-05-07

Posts: 1,819

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

Using for file in `ls` is bad practice. Instead go for: for file in *

Last edited by Procyon (2008-08-12 11:36:59)

Hohoho

Member

Registered: 2007-06-23

Posts: 222

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

`ls` is the problem, now I see it.
Use for file in * instead:
i=1;for f in *;do mv -v "$f" "$i\large.png"; echo $((i=i+1));done

tested and now it seems to work

Last edited by Hohoho (2008-08-12 12:25:17)

visio159

Member

Registered: 2008-07-03

Posts: 31

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

Thanks for all your help, appreciate your interest

Finally I got the actual answer with your helps:

i=1;for f in *;do mv -v "$f" "$i""large.png"; echo $((i=i+1));done

if i use \ then it gets appended, so I provided quotes to avoid ambiguity

have a good time

Last edited by visio159 (2008-08-12 14:51:30)

davvil

Member

Registered: 2008-05-06

Posts: 165

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

Just for the record, zsh handles this case gracefully, without the need of quoting. In this case this is not a big issue, but when nesting loops and variables, it can become quite helpful.

visio159

Member

Registered: 2008-07-03

Posts: 31

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

^^yes but I love bash shell !
If need arises I will use zsh or csh too

davvil

Member

Registered: 2008-05-06

Posts: 165

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

^^yes but I love bash shell !
If need arises I will use zsh or csh too

Not that I want to be a zsh-zealot , but with zsh you have bash syntax with improvements, it's not like changing to something different (e.g. csh). If you copy the command posted in this topic, it works just as it is. I bet if you sat at a computer with zsh instead of bash, you wouldn't notice at first, until you began to work and things just "work better".

PS: Ok, I know there are some differences (e.g. substring referencing), but the frequent commands are the same.

Procyon

Member

Registered: 2008-05-07

Posts: 1,819

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

You could rewrite "$i""large.png" as "${i}large.png".

visio159

Member

Registered: 2008-07-03

Posts: 31

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

thanks for your feedbacks, i guess i will have to learn shell scripting.
I have bad memory always keep forgetting syntax

robmaloy

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-05-14

Posts: 263

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

another option is to use

set IFS=$'\n'

this will tell bash to use newlines as the field separator and not spaces

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phrakture

Arch Overlord

From: behind you

Registered: 2003-10-29

Posts: 7,879

Website

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

Why don't you just use 'rename' ?

$ rename " " "-" *

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sevenfourk

Member

Registered: 2008-02-21

Posts: 185

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

It seems that

rename " " "-" *

puts the "-" only on the place of the first space in the file name, but if repeat it once again and again .. it puts the "-" to all the spaces.

Anyway i tried this how:

for file in *; do mv "$file" `echo $file | sed -e 's/  */_/g'`; done

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No cause is lost if there is but one fool left to fight for it.

shining

Pacman Developer

Registered: 2006-05-10

Posts: 2,043

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

It seems that

rename " " "-" *

puts the "-" only on the place of the first space in the file name, but if repeat it once again and again .. it puts the "-" to all the spaces.

Anyway i tried this how:

for file in *; do mv "$file" `echo $file | sed -e 's/  */_/g'`; done

Ah, I didn't see the two spaces before the *, that is important for it to work correctly
But you can just use + instead :

for file in *; do mv "$file" $(echo $file | sed -e 's/ \+/_/g'); done

---

pacman roulette : pacman -S $(pacman -Slq | LANG=C sort -R | head -n $((RANDOM % 10)))

chilebiker

Member

From: Zurich, Switzerland

Registered: 2006-07-18

Posts: 161

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

Due to this thread I wrote a script last night, maybe someone finds it useful:

#!/bin/bash

# global variables
Tempfile=/tmp/$$.$RANDOM

# argument check
if [ $# -ne 3 ] ; then
  echo "Usage: `basename $0` directory prefix file_extension"
  echo "       for example: `basename $0` . pic jpg"
  exit 65
fi

# generate file time-sorted file list
find $1 -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf "%T+%p\n" | grep $3 | sort | sed -r 's:(.+)/(.+):\2:' > $Tempfile

# rename files {prefix}{counter}.{extension} with counter starting from 0001
i=1
while read filename
do
  if [ "$i" -lt "10" ] ; then
    mv -v "$1$filename" "${1}${2}000${i}.${3}"
  elif [ "$i" -lt "100" ] ; then
    mv -v "$1$filename" "${1}${2}00${i}.${3}"
  elif [ "$i" -lt "1000" ] ; then
    mv -v "$1$filename" "${1}${2}0${i}.${3}"
  fi
  (( i++ ))
done < $Tempfile

rm $Tempfile

Last edited by chilebiker (2008-08-14 02:00:42)

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Don't panic!

visio159

Member

Registered: 2008-07-03

Posts: 31

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

^^thanks for the script

It seems that

rename " " "-" *

puts the "-" only on the place of the first space in the file name, but if repeat it once again and again .. it puts the "-" to all the spaces.

Anyway i tried this how:

for file in *; do mv "$file" `echo $file | sed -e 's/  */_/g'`; done

Ah, I didn't see the two spaces before the *, that is important for it to work correctly
But you can just use + instead :

for file in *; do mv "$file" $(echo $file | sed -e 's/ \+/_/g'); done

"+" is one or more occurrence ?
"*" is for zero or more occurrence ?

Thanks for feedback

Btw I liked Shining !

Last edited by visio159 (2008-08-15 20:17:26)

shining

Pacman Developer

Registered: 2006-05-10

Posts: 2,043

Re: Mass renaming...using command line

"+" is one or more occurrence ?
"*" is for zero or more occurrence ?

Exactly.

---

pacman roulette : pacman -S $(pacman -Slq | LANG=C sort -R | head -n $((RANDOM % 10)))