How to move a file and change its name without retyping the name and just add the new characters

Question

I change too frequently the location of some files generated daily. The thing is that I want to change their names by only adding the new required characters.

What I want is something like this:

$ mv file.csv /home/user/{something}_backup1

So I could see:

$ ls /home/user
file.csv_backup1

What I'm doing now is the simple:

$ mv file.csv /home/user/file.csv_backup1

You could say "don't be lazy and do it that way", the thing is that the real file names have around 25 characters and retyping them is really annoying.

The past given is only an example, it could be a different directory or different new text.

By the way I'm using bash shell

Solution 1

You could use a bash or ksh function added in your shell rc file :

mymv(){ echo mv "$1" "$2/${1##*/}_$3"; }
mymv file.csv /home/user backup1

remove the echo when tests are done

Solution 2

The simplest route, IMHO, is to use a variable:

a=file.csv; mv "$a" ~user/"$a"_backup

You can avail of tab completion with variables, both while setting them and while using them.

Solution 3

In bash, you could try the following:

• Type mv file1.
• Press Ctrl-w enough times to delete file1.
• Press Ctrl-y to paste file1 back.
• Type /home/user/.
• Press Ctrl-y to paste file1.
• Type the rest: _backup

Solution 4

Another solution.

A little crude, but this is going to work if all the original files are going to have the extension .csv and if you want to move all the .csv files from the current directory.

for i in *.csv; do 
    mv $i /home/user; 
    rename .csv .csv_backup1 /home/user/*.csv; 
done

Just change the 'user' for each users when needed.

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Comments

[jw013]

You should specify what shell you are using.

[tachomi]

But this is specific for the example given, I want something general cause it could be a different destination directory and different extra text

[Gilles Quenot]

POST edited accordingly

[Sreeraj]

@muru Thanks for correcting. Any reason you said 'never parse the output of ls ?

[muru]

Consider what will happen, if you have a file named a b.csv. And for a full discussion: unix.stackexchange.com/questions/128985/why-not-parse-ls (Accordingly, other things in your answer need changing, such as quoting of $i, etc.)