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 [options]
  10 .IR "expression replacement file" ...
  11 .SH DESCRIPTION
  12 .B rename
  13 will rename the specified files by replacing the first occurrence of
  14 .I expression
  15 in their name by
  16 .IR replacement .
  17 .SH OPTIONS
  18 .TP
  19 .BR \-s , " \-\-symlink"
  20 Do not rename a symlink but its target.
  21 .TP
  22 .BR \-v , " \-\-verbose"
  23 Show which files were renamed, if any.
  24 .TP
  25 .BR \-n , " \-\-no\-act"
  26 Do not make any changes; add
  27 .B \-\-verbose
  28 to see what would be made.
  29 .TP
  30 .BR \-o , " \-\-no\-overwrite"
  31 Do not overwrite existing files.  When
  32 .B \-\-symlink
  33 is active, do not overwrite symlinks pointing to existing targets.
  34 .TP
  35 .BR \-i , " \-\-interactive"
  36 Ask before overwriting existing files.
  37 .TP
  38 .BR \-V , " \-\-version"
  39 Display version information and exit.
  40 .TP
  41 .BR \-h , " \-\-help"
  42 Display help text and exit.
  43 .SH WARNING
  44 The renaming has no safeguards by default or without any one of the options
  45 .B \-\-no-overwrite\fR,
  46 .B \-\-interactive
  47 or
  48 .B \-\-no\-act\fR.
  49 If the user has
  50 permission to rewrite file names, the command will perform the action without
  51 any questions.  For example, the result can be quite drastic when the command
  52 is run as root in the /lib directory.  Always make a backup before running the
  53 command, unless you truly know what you are doing.
  54 .SH INTERACTIVE MODE
  55 As most standard utilities rename can be used with a terminal device (tty in
  56 short) in canonical mode, where the line is buffered by the tty and you press
  57 ENTER to validate the user input.  If you put your tty in cbreak mode however,
  58 rename requires only a single key press to answer the prompt.  To set cbreak
  59 mode, run for example:
  60 .RS
  61 .PP
  62 .nf
  63 sh \-c 'stty \-icanon min 1; "$0" "$@"; stty icanon' rename \-i from to files
  64 .fi
  65 .PP
  66 .RE
  67 .SH EXIT STATUS
  68 .RS
  69 .PD 0
  70 .TP
  71 .B 0
  72 all requested rename operations were successful
  73 .TP
  74 .B 1
  75 all rename operations failed
  76 .TP
  77 .B 2
  78 some rename operations failed
  79 .TP
  80 .B 4
  81 nothing was renamed
  82 .TP
  83 .B 64
  84 unanticipated error occurred
  85 .PD
  86 .RE
  87 .SH EXAMPLE
  88 Given the files
  89 .IR foo1 ", ..., " foo9 ", " foo10 ", ..., " foo278 ,
  90 the commands
  91 .RS
  92 .PP
  93 .nf
  94 rename foo foo00 foo?
  95 rename foo foo0 foo??
  96 .fi
  97 .PP
  98 .RE
  99 will turn them into
 100 .IR foo001 ", ..., " foo009 ", " foo010 ", ..., " foo278 .
 101 And
 102 .RS
 103 .PP
 104 .nf
 105 rename .htm .html *.htm
 106 .fi
 107 .PP
 108 .RE
 109 will fix the extension of your html files.
 110 Provide an empty string for shortening:
 111 .RS
 112 .PP
 113 .nf
 114 rename '_with_long_name' '' file_with_long_name.*
 115 .fi
 116 .PP
 117 .RE
 118 will remove the substring in the filenames.
 119 .SH SEE ALSO
 120 .BR mv (1)
 121 .SH AVAILABILITY
 122 The rename command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
 123 https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.