Rename multiple files

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

In my directory I have many files, for e.g.

file_123
file_124
file_125
file_126
file_127

Instead of renaming these files one by one, I would like to rename them at a same time using same command... they should appear like

123
124
125
126
127

What command(awk or ls or anything...) should work here?

regards,
juzz4fun

2

The simple thing is to just use bash, ksh, or any other POSIX conforming shell (I used ksh for this example):

#!/bin/ksh
for i in file_*
do      echo mv "$i" "${i#file_}"
done

if the commands printed are what you are trying to do, remove the "echo " so the script will actually move the files. With the files in the current directory you listed, the output produced is:

mv file_123 123
mv file_124 124
mv file_125 125
mv file_126 126
mv file_127 127
1 Like
3

Thanks a ton... :slight_smile:

By the way, I guess ${i#"...."} removes the string in double quotes...what if I want to add some string... like

folder_123
folder_124
folder_125
folder_126
folder_127

regards,
juzz4fun

4

I'm not sure I understand your question. If you man you want to move file_123 to folder_123 and instead of just removing file_ , try:

#!/bin/ksh
for i in file_*
do      mv "$i" "folder${i#file}"
done

The expansion of ${i#string} removes string from the start of the expansion of $i if the expansion of $i starts with string ; otherwise, it just results in the expansion of $i . (If string contains filename pattern matching special characters it is more complex than that, but in this case there are no special characters in the pattern.)

1 Like