Rename files and directories recursively under ubuntu /bash

Question

I want to rename all files and directories that contain the word "special" to "regular". It should maintain case sensitivity so "Special" won't become "regular".

How can i do this in bash recursively?

Solution 1

Try doing this (require bash --version >= 4):

shopt -s globstar
rename -n 's/special/regular/' **

Remove the -n switch when your tests are OK

There are other tools with the same name which may or may not be able to do this, so be careful.

If you run the following command (GNU)

$ file "$(readlink -f "$(type -p rename)")"

and you have a result like

.../rename: Perl script, ASCII text executable

and not containing:

ELF

then this seems to be the right tool =)

If not, to make it the default (usually already the case) on Debian and derivative like Ubuntu :

$ sudo update-alternatives --set rename /path/to/rename

(replace /path/to/rename to the path of your perl's rename command.

---

If you don't have this command, search your package manager to install it or do it manually

---

Last but not least, this tool was originally written by Larry Wall, the Perl's dad.

Solution 2

A solution using find:

To rename files only:

find /your/target/path/ -type f -exec rename 's/special/regular/' '{}' \;

To rename directories only:

find /your/target/path/ -type d -execdir rename 's/special/regular/' '{}' \+

To rename both files and directories:

find /your/target/path/ -execdir rename 's/special/regular/' '{}' \+

Solution 3

If you don't mind installing another tool, then you can use rnm:

rnm -rs '/special/regular/g' -dp -1 *

It will go through all directories/sub-directories (because of -dp -1) and replace special with regular in their names.

Solution 4

@speakr's answer was the clue for me.

If using -execdir to transform both files and directories, you'll also want to remove -type f from the example shown. To spell it out, use:

find /your/target/path/ -execdir rename 's/special/regular/' '{}' \+

Also, consider adding g (global) flag to the regex if you want to replace all occurrences of special with regular in a given filename and not just the first occurrence. For example:

find /your/target/path/ -execdir rename 's/special/regular/g' '{}' \+

will transform special-special.jpg to regular-regular.jpg. Without the global flag, you'll end up with regular-special.jpg.

FYI: GNU Rename is not installed by default on Mac OSX. If you are using the Homebrew package manager, brew install rename will remedy this.

Solution 5

Here is another approach which is more portable and does not rely on the rename command (since it may require different parameters depending on the distros).

It renames files and directories recursively:

find . -depth -name "*special*" | \
while IFS= read -r ent; do mv $ent ${ent%special*}regular${ent##*special}; done

What it does

• use find with -depth parameter to reorder the results by performing a depth-first traversal (i.e. all entries in a directory are displayed before the directory itself).
• do pattern substitutions to only modifiy the last occurence of regular in the path.

That way the files are modified first and then each parent directory.

Example

Giving the following tree:

├── aa-special-aa
│   └── bb-special
│       ├── special-cc
│       ├── special-dd
│       └── Special-ee
└── special-00

It generate those mv commands in that particular order:

mv ./aa-special-aa/bb-special/special-cc ./aa-special-aa/bb-special/regular-cc
mv ./aa-special-aa/bb-special/special-dd ./aa-special-aa/bb-special/regular-dd
mv ./aa-special-aa/bb-special ./aa-special-aa/bb-regular
mv ./aa-special-aa ./aa-regular-aa
mv ./special-00 ./regular-00

To obtain the following tree:

├── aa-regular-aa
│   └── bb-regular
│       ├── regular-cc
│       ├── regular-dd
│       └── Special-ee
└── regular-00

View more solutions

Comments

[Tom]

what is the shopt -s globstar for?

[Gilles Quenot]

It enables the bash feature ** (stands for recursive) maybe already enabled.

[Tom]

GNU bash, version 4.2.24(1)-release

[Gilles Quenot]

let us continue this discussion in chat

[Dmitry Gonchar]

@speakr, Great solution, thanks! Could you provide more details about what it is doing, especially this part " '{}' \ "? Quick goggling did not help, so I thought that this information may be useful for others as well.

[speakr]

@DmitryGonchar Just take a look at -exec command ; in the find manpage.

[killjoy]

The chat window you linked to is borked..I just try this and I got this response: rename: invalid option -- 'n' version: [##@localhost Staticality]$ bash --version GNU bash, version 4.2.46(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)

[Dennis]

I have about 1700 files to rename in directories in my home directory. That seems too many for this to work, that actually was the text in the error message, too many arguments.

[Dennis]

I tried this with the -n flag (not ready to experiment with permanet results yet, and got this error: Replacement list is longer than search list at (eval 1) line 1. My actual command invoked was: find $HOME -type f -exec prename -n 'y/ /-_-/' '{}' \;

[Gilles Quenot]

@killjoy: you have to install perl's rename. (sometimes named prename or install the module: cpan File::Rename @Dennis: use find : find . -exec rename 's/special/regular/' {} +

[user1]

Does it work recursively in the current directory or globally? In other words, is the path "." or "/"?

[speakr]

@ThiloSchulz It does, but you have to use find … -execdir … '{}' + instead of … '{}' \;. Clarification added.

[user658182]

@speakr I'm not getting the results I'm expecting for replacing directories, and I'm not sure I'm understanding the 'find ... -execdir suggestion. Do I change type f to type d? Can you please write out the full working command for directories in your answer please?

[LokMac]

If anyone can clarify what is done to action the command for both files and directories in a single pass that would be appreciated too, and I'll update this answer with the command.

[LokMac]

Is this installed from Homebrew?

[Jahid]

@LokMac : I don't think it's available in homebrew (I only package binary for debian based OS), If you have automake, you can install it in any Unix system (Instructions are in the readme).

[AnnanFay]

For me this causes -bash: /usr/bin/rename: Argument list too long

[Gilles Quenot]

So use find /dir -exec rename 's///' {} +

[Black]

Great tool! Worked for me!

[speakr]

@user658182 Yes, use -type d combined with -execdir for directories only.

[Brannon]

You may have to run the rename command multiple times in a row: run it until it doesn't report moved files.

[Gilles Quenot]

-_- Are you sure you have perl's rename before 'downvoting' ?

[Ferroao]

in order to avoid errors use for i in **; do rename 's/<toreplace>/<replacewith>/' "$i"; done after globstar

[Rui Seixas Monteiro]

In case of many files, take advantage of regex in find, for the last example above you use: find /your/target/path/ -regex '.*special.*' -execdir rename 's/special/regular/' '{}' \+, otherwise it will be quite slow!

[Romain Vincent]

People trying to rename a pattern occuring multiple times in the same name should add the 'g' flag at the end of the substitution command: 's/old/new/g'

[inetphantom]

will this correclty handle including folders? e.g. /special/regular/regular-specilal.jpeg

[Cmag]

great, thank you. However, does not seem to do the job recursively on OSX....

[Dax]

Thanks a lot for this explanation, perfect fit my needs.

[MrR]

But it doesn't do a depth first traversal so it's open to problems with parent directories haven't been renamed first.