rename — rename files
rename
[options] expression
replacement file...
rename will
rename the specified files by replacing the first occurrence
of expression
in
their name by replacement
.
−s,
−−symlink
Do not rename a symlink but its target.
−v,
−−verbose
Show which files were renamed, if any.
−n,
−−no−act
Do not make any changes.
−o,
−−no−overwrite
Do not overwrite existing files. When −−symlink
is active, do not
overwrite symlinks pointing to existing targets.
−V,
−−version
Display version information and exit.
−h,
−−help
Display help text and exit.
Given the files foo1
, ...,
foo9
, foo10
, ..., foo278
, the commands
rename foo foo00 foo? rename foo foo0 foo??
will turn them into foo001
,
..., foo009
, foo010
, ..., foo278
. And
rename .htm .html *.htm
will fix the extension of your html files. Provide an empty string for shortening:
rename '_with_long_name' '' file_with_long_name.*
will remove the substring in the filenames.
The renaming has no safeguards except the −−no−act
option. If the
user has permission to rewrite file names, the command will
perform the action without any questions. For example, the
result can be quite drastic when the command is run as root
in the /lib directory. Always make a backup before running
the command, unless you truly know what you are doing.