Mass rename of file extensions recursively (windows batch)

Question

I have numerous files in a very complex directory structure, and for reasons not worth discussing I need to rename all files with the extension of ".inp" to have ".TXT" extensions. There are numerous other files with other extensions that I do not want to be touched, and I want to do it recursively down at least 5 levels.

So far I have:

for /d %%x in (*) do pushd %%x & Ren *.inp *.TXT & popd

...but this only goes down one level of directories.

Can anyone help? Thanks in advance!

Solution 1

for /r startdir %%i in (*.inp) do ECHO ren "%%i" "%%~ni.txt"

should work for you. Replace startdir with your starting directoryname and when you've checked this works to your satisfaction, remove the echo before the ren to actually do the rename.

---

For the downvoters: executing a batch file differs from excuting from the command prompt in that each %%x where x is the metavariable (loop-control variable) needs to be reduced to %, so

for /r startdir %i in (*.inp) do ECHO ren "%i" "%~ni.txt"

should work if you execute this from the prompt. Please read the note about echo.

Solution 2

On Windows 7, the following one-line command works for me, to rename all files, recursively, in *.js to *.txt:

FOR /R %x IN (*.js) DO ren "%x" *.txt

Solution 3

John Smith's answer is excellent, and it works. But to be completely clear (I had to re-read magoo's notes to figure out the correct syntax), here is exactly what you need to do...

BATCH FILE:
FOR /R %%x IN (*.js) DO ren "%%x" *.txt

COMMAND LINE:
FOR /R %x IN (*.js) DO ren "%x" *.txt

Up vote their responses, I am but a lowly formater...

Comments

[Neville]

@Magoo... i think I love you. Thanks for this solution to a problem which took 2 days of my life, excellent work thanks!

[Steve Chamaillard]

This worked, the selected answer didn't, said "%%i was inexpected". Thanks for this !

[brunettdan]

Got same error "%%i was inexpected" from the code in the accepted answer. Note you'll have to cd to the start directory

[Magoo]

@SteveChamaillard : That's because the selected answer assumes the line is in a batch file. If it's executed from the prompt, you need to change each %% to %

[Magoo]

@brunettdan : : That's because the selected answer assumes the line is in a batch file. If it's executed from the prompt, you need to change each %% to %

[jrhamza]

i love this echo option. I was trying to run this, initially in a wrong directory. And echo option saved me.

[FirstVertex]

I wish this explained what the ~ni is for

[Magoo]

@HDog : See the documentation for /? from the prompt. ~n modifies the metavariable i to select only the Name part.