[LEFT]Hi Guys,
I have 5000 files in a folder. all are .DAT files.
I want to rename them as .TXT files.
I tried the following command.
mv *.DAT *. TXT
But it is throwing an error. Can you please tell me what am i doing wrong.
Thanks & Regards,
Magesh.
[/LEFT]
mv *.DAT *. TXT
Remove the space b/w *. and TXT
for i in *.DAT
do
mv "$i" "${i%.DAT}.TXT;
done
@panyam,
the space was typo error... Actually i tried without space only..
@danmero,
Can't we run a single command, do we have to use a for loop.. just to understand the mv command.. is it designed to rename or move only single file at a time?
Thanks for your help guys,,
Its more about knowing how '*' works, rather than mv command
if ur directory contains two .DAT files, F1.DAT and F2.DAT, and one TXT file, F.txt
actual command getting fired will be
mv F1.DAT F2.DAT F.txt
and now think if above command makes sense to you.
correct sharad,
But i tired the same command from the command prompt.. it worked fine...
(Ofcourse not the mv command, but ren command)
ren *.DAT *.txt
Is there any substitution for that above command in unix....
DOS command ?
I could not find ren on my system, tried to search and Google/wiki said its dos command
it may be ren or rename.. it depends on the DOS i think
---------- Post updated at 07:33 PM ---------- Previous update was at 07:33 PM ----------
C:\Documents and Settings\222170>help
For more information on a specific command, type HELP command-name
ASSOC Displays or modifies file extension associations.
AT Schedules commands and programs to run on a computer.
ATTRIB Displays or changes file attributes.
BREAK Sets or clears extended CTRL+C checking.
CACLS Displays or modifies access control lists (ACLs) of files.
CALL Calls one batch program from another.
CD Displays the name of or changes the current directory.
CHCP Displays or sets the active code page number.
CHDIR Displays the name of or changes the current directory.
CHKDSK Checks a disk and displays a status report.
CHKNTFS Displays or modifies the checking of disk at boot time.
CLS Clears the screen.
CMD Starts a new instance of the Windows command interpreter.
COLOR Sets the default console foreground and background colors.
COMP Compares the contents of two files or sets of files.
COMPACT Displays or alters the compression of files on NTFS partitions.
CONVERT Converts FAT volumes to NTFS. You cannot convert the
current drive.
COPY Copies one or more files to another location.
DATE Displays or sets the date.
DEL Deletes one or more files.
DIR Displays a list of files and subdirectories in a directory.
DISKCOMP Compares the contents of two floppy disks.
DISKCOPY Copies the contents of one floppy disk to another.
DOSKEY Edits command lines, recalls Windows commands, and creates macros.
ECHO Displays messages, or turns command echoing on or off.
ENDLOCAL Ends localization of environment changes in a batch file.
ERASE Deletes one or more files.
EXIT Quits the CMD.EXE program (command interpreter).
FC Compares two files or sets of files, and displays the differences
between them.
FIND Searches for a text string in a file or files.
FINDSTR Searches for strings in files.
FOR Runs a specified command for each file in a set of files.
FORMAT Formats a disk for use with Windows.
FTYPE Displays or modifies file types used in file extension associations.
GOTO Directs the Windows command interpreter to a labeled line in a
batch program.
GRAFTABL Enables Windows to display an extended character set in graphics
mode.
HELP Provides Help information for Windows commands.
IF Performs conditional processing in batch programs.
LABEL Creates, changes, or deletes the volume label of a disk.
MD Creates a directory.
MKDIR Creates a directory.
MODE Configures a system device.
MORE Displays output one screen at a time.
MOVE Moves one or more files from one directory to another directory.
PATH Displays or sets a search path for executable files.
PAUSE Suspends processing of a batch file and displays a message.
POPD Restores the previous value of the current directory saved by PUSHD.
PRINT Prints a text file.
PROMPT Changes the Windows command prompt.
PUSHD Saves the current directory then changes it.
RD Removes a directory.
RECOVER Recovers readable information from a bad or defective disk.
REM Records comments (remarks) in batch files or CONFIG.SYS.
REN Renames a file or files.
RENAME Renames a file or files.
REPLACE Replaces files.
RMDIR Removes a directory.
SET Displays, sets, or removes Windows environment variables.
SETLOCAL Begins localization of environment changes in a batch file.
SHIFT Shifts the position of replaceable parameters in batch files.
SORT Sorts input.
START Starts a separate window to run a specified program or command.
SUBST Associates a path with a drive letter.
TIME Displays or sets the system time.
TITLE Sets the window title for a CMD.EXE session.
TREE Graphically displays the directory structure of a drive or path.
TYPE Displays the contents of a text file.
VER Displays the Windows version.
VERIFY Tells Windows whether to verify that your files are written
correctly to a disk.
VOL Displays a disk volume label and serial number.
XCOPY Copies files and directory trees.
We do have to process the file name first 
@mac4rfree This are Unix and Linux forums , not related to DOS or Windows.
We assume that the o/p is not in an ftp session (where "REN" is valid).
This shell method should work for any number of files and for filenames containing space characters.
#!/bin/ksh
ls -1d *\.DAT | while read FILENAME
do
# Command basename to remove the file extension .DAT .
FILENAME_PREFIX=`basename "${FILENAME}" .DAT`
echo mv "${FILENAME_PREFIX}.DAT" "${FILENAME_PREFIX}.TXT"
done
Remove the "echo" when happy to actually rename the files.
sorry danmero,, what i was actually trying was to get a unix version of that dos command..
I personally felt that anything that can be done in DOS can be done in unix.. thats y..
In Linux/Unix, we have the rename command, though the problem is not the command but the number of files to be treated.
In *BSD you can do something like
rename .bak .txt *.bak
to change the extension. You can even use a regex with the rename command :
rename "regex-rule" files