Moving and renaming multiple files in a directory

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi.

I am trying to automate the movement and renaming of a number of files in a directory. I am using the 'mv' command as I do not have access to 'rename'. I have the following scripted

FILES=$(ls /transfer/move/sys/mail/20130123/)
	if [ ! -z "${FILES}" ] ; then
		for i in ${FILES} ; do
			mv /transfer/move/sys/mail/20130123/${FILES} /transfer/archive/sys/mail/20130123/MYFILENAME_`date +%Y%m%d%M%S00`.dat ; done
	fi

which works perfectly when there is only one file in the directory, but when there are multiple files I get the following error

.

I have attempted to add a sleep to the command, but the same error appears.

Can anyone advise what I am doing wrong, or even suggest a better way of achieving this?

Thanks in advance.

2

You should use $i instead of $FILES on the mv commandline.

If time with seconds is just for unique filenames try mktemp instead:

DIR=/transfer/move/sys/mail/20130123
FILES=$(ls $DIR)
if [ ! -z "${FILES}" ] ; then
    for i in ${FILES} ; do
        mv -f $DIR/$i $(mktemp --suffix=.dat $DIR/MYFILENAME_XXXXXX)
    done
fi
3

Thanks Chubler_XL.

Unfortunately mktemp does not work and teh following error is returned

I have modified your suggestion to the following

DIR=transfer/move/sys/mail/20130123/
FILES=$(ls $DIR)
if [ ! -z "${FILES}" ] ; then
    for i in ${FILES} ; do
        mv $DIR/$i /transfer/archive/sys/mail/20130123/MYFILENAME_`date +%Y%m%d%M%S00`.dat
    done
fi

but if there is more than 1 file in the source directory, it will only transfer one across and rename it, discarding the remaining files.

Any other ideas?

4

mktemp is not available on all systems, it's not POSIX.

How about this?

DIR=/transfer/move/sys/mail/20130123
FILES=$(ls $DIR)
if [ ! -z "${FILES}" ] ; then
    for i in ${FILES} ; do
        F=$DIR/MYFILENAME_$(openssl rand -hex 4).dat
        while [ -f $F ]
        do
            F=$DIR/MYFILENAME_$(openssl rand -hex 4).dat
        done
        mv $DIR/$i $F
    done
fi
5

Thank you Chubler_XL, that works perfectly!