Rename a multiple files

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have multiple files in folder which i want to rename. hence I am using the below command in my script by I get an error:

export XXX_LOG_DIR="${LOG_DIR}/${XXX_HOST}/xxx/${REPORT_DATE}"
 mv $XXX_LOG_DIR/*.audit.gz $XXX_LOG_DIR/*.audit.log.gz

But I get the below error:

mv: target `xxxxx.......' is not a directory

Can you please help?

2

You cant rename ( mv) multiple files in one go... the syntax says multiples files to a directory or file to newfile...
You will have to write a script using a loop...

3

Do I need to use for loop then ?

4

Hi Karan,

Yes you probably would be better using a script or loop to do this, as an aside it is possible to move multiple files using the mv command as follows.

-bash-3.2$ ls Uploads/p*
Uploads/parser.exp    Uploads/phantom.html  Uploads/pr.nawk       Uploads/preparser.sh
Uploads/pdf2html.pl   Uploads/pr.gawk       Uploads/prair
-bash-3.2$ mv Uploads/p* uploads/
-bash-3.2$ ls Uploads/p*
Uploads/p*: No such file or directory
-bash-3.2$ ls uploads
parser.exp    pdf2html.pl   phantom.html  pr.gawk       pr.nawk       prair         preparser.sh
-bash-3.2$ ls Uploads/h*
Uploads/hexgen.scr
-bash-3.2$

It is essential that the destination is a directory.

Regards

Gull04

5

Hi.

Some possibilities, some of which depend on OS:

Rename multiple files, groups of files
        1) rename -- Debian version and RedHat version differ, q.v.
           (try package util-linux:
           http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Util-linux)

        2) ren -- RedHat relatives

        3) renameutils -- package contains qmv, imv, icp, qcp, and deurlname

        4) mved -- (circa 2006; good as of 2015.05), perl
           http://raf.org/mved/
           (An earlier shell version may be available.)

        5) rename -- perl builtin library routine (DIY)

See man and web pages for details ... cheers, drl

6

If you download/compile/install mmv, then you can do

mmv "$XXX_LOG_DIR/*.audit.gz" "$XXX_LOG_DIR/#1.audit.log.gz"

The #1 refers to the first wildcard, here * .
--
Here is a shell loop tailored for your specific task

for file in $XXX_LOG_DIR/*.audit.gz
do
  [ -f "$file" ] || continue
  chop_end=${file%.audit.gz}
  dest=${chop_end}.audit.log.gz
  mv "$file" "$dest"
done