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 EXAMPLES
  44 Given the files
  45 .IR foo1 ", ..., " foo9 ", " foo10 ", ..., " foo278 ,
  46 the commands
  47 .RS
  48 .PP
  49 .nf
  50 rename foo foo00 foo?
  51 rename foo foo0 foo??
  52 .fi
  53 .PP
  54 .RE
  55 will turn them into
  56 .IR foo001 ", ..., " foo009 ", " foo010 ", ..., " foo278 .
  57 And
  58 .RS
  59 .PP
  60 .nf
  61 rename .htm .html *.htm
  62 .fi
  63 .PP
  64 .RE
  65 will fix the extension of your html files.
  66 Provide an empty string for shortening:
  67 .RS
  68 .PP
  69 .nf
  70 rename '_with_long_name' '' file_with_long_name.*
  71 .fi
  72 .PP
  73 .RE
  74 will remove the substring in the filenames.
  75 .SH WARNING
  76 The renaming has no safeguards by default or without any one of the options
  77 .B \-\-no-overwrite\fR,
  78 .B \-\-interactive
  79 or
  80 .B \-\-no\-act\fR.
  81 If the user has
  82 permission to rewrite file names, the command will perform the action without
  83 any questions.  For example, the result can be quite drastic when the command
  84 is run as root in the /lib directory.  Always make a backup before running the
  85 command, unless you truly know what you are doing.
  86 .SH INTERACTIVE MODE
  87 As most standard utilities rename can be used with a terminal device (tty in
  88 short) in canonical mode, where the line is buffered by the tty and you press
  89 ENTER to validate the user input.  If you put your tty in cbreak mode however,
  90 rename requires only a single key press to answer the prompt.  To set cbreak
  91 mode, run for example:
  92 .RS
  93 .PP
  94 .nf
  95 sh -c 'stty -icanon min 1; "$0" "$@"; stty icanon' rename -i from to files
  96 .fi
  97 .PP
  98 .RE
  99 .SH "EXIT STATUS"
 100 .RS
 101 .PD 0
 102 .TP
 103 .B 0
 104 all requested rename operations were successful
 105 .TP
 106 .B 1
 107 all rename operations failed
 108 .TP
 109 .B 2
 110 some rename operations failed
 111 .TP
 112 .B 4
 113 nothing was renamed
 114 .TP
 115 .B 64
 116 unanticipated error occurred
 117 .PD
 118 .RE
 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/.