bach linux file rename - how to rename multiple files in linux console

Question

I would like to rename cca 1000 files that are named like: 66-123123.jpg -> abc-123123-66.jpg. So in general file format is: xx-yyyyyy.jpg -> abc-yyyyyy-xx.jpg, where xx and yyyyyy are numbers, abc is string. Can someone help me with bash or py script?

Answer 1

Try doing this :

rename 's/(\d{2})-(\d{6})\.jpg/abc-$2-$1.jpg/' *.jpg

There are other tools with the same name which may or may not be able to do this, so be careful.

If you run the following command (linux)

$ file $(readlink -f $(type -p rename))

and you have a result like

.../rename: Perl script, ASCII text executable

then this seems to be the right tool =)

If not, to make it the default (usually already the case) on Debian and derivative like Ubuntu :

$ sudo update-alternatives --set rename /path/to/rename

(replace /path/to/rename to the path of your perl's rename command.

---

If you don't have this command, search your package manager to install it or do it manually.

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Last but not least, this tool was originally written by Larry Wall, the Perl's dad.

Answer 2

for file in ??-??????.jpg ; do
    [[ $file =~ (..)-(......)\.jpg ]]
    mv "$file" "abc-${BASH_REMATCH[2]}-${BASH_REMATCH[1]}.jpg" ; 
done

This requires bash 4 for the regex support. For POSIXy shells, this will do

for f in ??-??????.jpg ; do
    g=${f%.jpg}  # remove the extension
    a=${g%-*}    # remove the trailing "-yyyyyy"
    b=${g#*-}    # remove the leading "xx-"
    mv "$f" "abc-$b-$a.jpg" ; 
done

Answer 3

You could use the rename command, which renames multiple files using regular expressions. In this case you would like to write

rename 's/(\d\d)-(\d\d\d\d\d\d)/abc-$2-$1/' *

where \dmeans a digit, and $1 and $2 refer to the values matched by the first and second parenthesis.

Answer 4

Being able to do things like this easily, is why I name my files the way I do. Using a + sign lets me cut them all up into variables, and then I can just re-arrange them with echo.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -x

find *.jpg -type f | while read files
do
newname=$(echo "${files}" | sed s'@-@+@'g | sed s'@\.jpg@+.jpg@'g)
field1=$(echo "${newname}" | cut -d'+' -f1)
field2=$(echo "${newname}" | cut -d'+' -f2)
field3=$(echo "${newname}" | cut -d'+' -f3)

finalname=$(echo "abc-${field2}-${field1}.${field3}")
mv "${files}" "${finalname}"
done