Search and replace (in filenames)

[Guest xaff]

I was just wondering, is there a way to search and replace characters in filenames?

 

Example, I have a file named "Beatles%20-%20Can't%20Buy%20Me%20Love.mpg". Now, you might see the problem, those %20'es are annoying as hell. So, what I need to have replaced is "%20" on a lot of files.

 

Any ideas?

[Dyslexic]

This should do the trick.

 

http://www.krename.net/

[qnr]

you could also modify this script I use to rename "Some file or other" to "Some_file_or_other" - should be pretty easy to see what's going on and how to change it:

 

#!/bin/bash

# blank-rename.sh

#

# Substitutes underscores for blanks in all the filenames in a directory.



ONE=1                           # For getting singular/plural right (see below)

number=0                        # Keeps track of how many files actually renamed.

FOUND=0                         # Successful return value.



for filename in *               # Traverse all files in directory

do

       echo "$filename" | grep -q " "                  #  Check whether filename

       if [ $? -eq $FOUND ]                            #+ contains space(s).

       then

         fname=$filename                               #  Strip off path.

         n=`echo $fname | sed -e "s/ /_/g"`            #  Substitute underscore for blank.

         mv "$fname" "$n"                              #  Do the actual renaming.

         let "number += 1"

       fi

done



if [ "$number" -eq "$ONE" ]                             #  For correct grammar.

then

 echo "$number file renamed."

else

 echo "$number files renamed."

fi



exit 0

[aRTee]

Read the manpage for 'rename'

man rename

or in konqueror, put it in the location field:

man:/rename

 

basically it works like this:

rename "string you want to replace" "string to replace it with" [filename to do it on]

 

In you case, you can do

rename "%20" "_" *.mp3

which will change all the %20 in all filenames that end in .mp3 in your current dir into an underscore.

 

To do it on any file, just do:

rename "%20" "_" *

 

and

rename "%20" "_" */*

will do the same on all filenames one directory level deeper.

Just use arrow up and add a /* each time, to do it 5 levels deep in 5 seconds... ;)

[qnr]

yes, there's rename every once in a while to ensure that you have them all and aren't continuing needlessly, but it's a perfectly good way of doing it.

[aRTee]

Well, didn't know that rename only takes care of one %20 per filename, but I bet it's still faster to type arrow-up, enter a couple of times than actually do things with a script, if you have to figure out how to do scripting... ;)

[qnr]

I agree, replace is a perfectly good way of doing it, except that mp3s might have twenty or thirty spaces (%20) in them. As far as writing the script, xaff just had to copy and paste it :) then, with the script, you just modify:

 

n=`echo $fname | sed -e "s/ /_/g"` # Substitute underscore for blank.

 

to replace whatever strings you want.

 

Or get more ambitious, and add 2 args so you can specify what to replace anytime you run it. Then save it in your path and chmod +x it, go to the directory where the files are and run it.

[Guest xaff]

Thanks a lot qnr. (-:

 

(At times like these, I really love linux)

[Steve Scrimpshire]

if [ "$number" -eq "$ONE" ]                             #  For correct grammar.

then

 echo "$number file renamed."

else

 echo "$number files renamed."

fi

 

Looks like something I would add into a script like this...LOL.

 

I have a question about this. Would it be a security risk to change the script so that you could pass the "find and replace" replace string into the script?

 

Ex:

./replace-script replacethis withthis

 

and change this:

n=`echo $fname | sed -e "s/ /_/g"`

 

to:

n=`echo $fname | sed -e "s/$1/$2/g"`

 

(possibly you have to assign $1 and $2 with other variable names at the beginning of the script because this line being piped might assign $1 and/or $2 to something else, maybe?)

[qnr]

I can't see it being too much of a security threat, might want to keep it out of root's $PATH, of course. It's only changing filenames in a directory. I'd be more worried about accidently typing replace_anything with_blank (but at least the report would be grammatically correct :wink: )