misc-utils/rename.1

   1 .\" Written by Andries E. Brouwer (aeb@cwi.nl)
   2 .\" Placed in the public domain
   3 .\"
   4 .TH RENAME 1 "June 2011" "util-linux" "User Commands"
   5 .SH NAME
   6 rename \- rename files
   7 .SH SYNOPSIS
   8 .B rename
   9 .RI [ options ] " expression replacement file" ...
  10 .SH DESCRIPTION
  11 .B rename
  12 will rename the specified files by replacing the first occurrence of
  13 .I expression
  14 in their name by
  15 .IR replacement .
  16 .SH OPTIONS
  17 .TP
  18 \fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-verbose\fR
  19 Give visual feedback which files where renamed, if any.
  20 .TP
  21 \fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
  22 Display version information and exit.
  23 .TP
  24 \fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-symlink\fR
  25 Peform rename on symlink target
  26 .TP
  27 \fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
  28 Display help text and exit.
  29 .SH EXAMPLES
  30 Given the files
  31 .IR foo1 ", ..., " foo9 ", " foo10 ", ..., " foo278 ,
  32 the commands
  33 .RS
  34 .PP
  35 .nf
  36 rename foo foo0 foo?
  37 rename foo foo0 foo??
  38 .fi
  39 .PP
  40 .RE
  41 will turn them into
  42 .IR foo001 ", ..., " foo009 ", " foo010 ", ..., " foo278 .
  43 And
  44 .RS
  45 .PP
  46 .nf
  47 rename .htm .html *.htm
  48 .fi
  49 .PP
  50 .RE
  51 will fix the extension of your html files.
  52 .SH WARNING
  53 The renaming has no safeguards.  If the user has permission to rewrite file names,
  54 the command will perform the action without any questions.  For example, the
  55 result can be quite drastic when the command is run as root in the /lib
  56 directory.  Always make a backup before running the command, unless you truly
  57 know what you are doing.
  58 .SH "EXIT STATUS"
  59 .RS
  60 .PD 0
  61 .TP
  62 .B 0
  63 all requested rename operations were successful
  64 .TP
  65 .B 1
  66 all rename operations failed
  67 .TP
  68 .B 2
  69 some rename operations failed
  70 .TP
  71 .B 4
  72 nothing was renamed
  73 .TP
  74 .B 64
  75 unanticipated error occurred
  76 .PD
  77 .RE
  78 .SH "SEE ALSO"
  79 .BR mv (1)
  80 .SH AVAILABILITY
  81 The rename command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
  82 ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.