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Andrew at work · Jul 24, 2001, 04:59 PM

Is there any easy way to rename a directory full of files from the terminal? I have a dir with 50 some images in it. I'd like to be able to add a word to the front of each file name. So, instead of having:

image.jpg
neatpicture.jpg
cry.jpg

I could rename them all at once to:

web_image.jpg
web_neatpicture.jpg
web_cry.jpg

Any ideas? Thanks!

Jul 24, 2001, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by Andrew at work:
Is there any easy way to rename a directory full of files from the terminal? I have a dir with 50 some images in it. I'd like to be able to add a word to the front of each file name. So, instead of having:

image.jpg
neatpicture.jpg
cry.jpg

I could rename them all at once to:

web_image.jpg
web_neatpicture.jpg
web_cry.jpg

Any ideas? Thanks!

find *.jpg -exec mv {} web_{} \;

cpt kangarooski · Jul 25, 2001, 01:43 AM

Wow. Even DOS has a REN command. (which in this case would be REN web_*.*, I think) IF Apple wants OS X to be easy to use, that pretty much includes dumping bash and writing a good shell.

At any rate, there's a Classic program called File Renamer... MacRenamer... something like that. It's on the regular ftp sites, and will do what you want within the old 31 character limit. I use it a lot at work.

gorgonzola · Jul 25, 2001, 04:40 AM

Mac OS X doesn't use bash. I know what you mean though.

Andrew at work · Jul 25, 2001, 11:40 AM

Originally posted by <trey>:


find *.jpg -exec mv {} web_{} \;

All this does is take all my .jpg files, and rename them one at a time to web_ . I'm left with a single file (the last .jpg) named web_ .

I'd really like to have a bunch of separate files each with a web_ prefix. As it is, the command is handy for deleting a bunch of .jpgs, but not so good for me.

The code trey posted is probably close, but not close enough. Any more ideas? Thanks!

acur128 · Jul 25, 2001, 01:34 PM

adding quotes to the new name should do it:

find *.jpg -exec mv {} 'web_{}' \;

if you want to confirm each change, (& see what the result will be), try:

find *.jpg -ok mv {} 'web_{}' \;

or... for the gui approach, you could save the following in "Script Editor" as a Mac OS X applet, & run it from the Finder (or from the shell (open scriptname)):
<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>set theFolder to choose folder with prompt "Please choose a folder..."
set ext_to_process to text returned of (display dialog "Please enter the file extension for files to be processed in the selected folder..." default answer ".jpg" with icon 1)
set the_prefix to text returned of (display dialog "Please enter the new prefix for files with the extension \"" & ext_to_process & "\" in the selected folder..." default answer "web_" with icon 1)
set rename_all to false
if ext_to_process as string = "" then
if button returned of (display dialog "Add the prefix \"" & the_prefix & "\" to all files in the selected folder (regardless of extension)?" with icon 1) = "OK" then
set rename_all to true
end if
end if
set theList to list folder theFolder
repeat with anitem in theList
set theFile to alias ((theFolder as string) & contents of anitem)
tell application "Finder"
if rename_all is true then
set name of theFile to ((the_prefix as string) & (name of theFile)) as string
else
if name of theFile ends with (ext_to_process as string) then
set name of theFile to ((the_prefix as string) & (name of theFile)) as string
end if
end if
end tell
end repeat[/code]
edit: some problems with /usr/bin/osascript & dialogs (should be fixed in 10.1 (hopefully))... opening the script from the shell should be fine

[ 07-25-2001: Message edited by: acur128 ]

Jul 25, 2001, 02:00 PM

Originally posted by cpt kangarooski:
Wow. Even DOS has a REN command. (which in this case would be REN web_*.*, I think) IF Apple wants OS X to be easy to use, that pretty much includes dumping bash and writing a good shell.

At any rate, there's a Classic program called File Renamer... MacRenamer... something like that. It's on the regular ftp sites, and will do what you want within the old 31 character limit. I use it a lot at work.

please don't blame a shell for your lack of knowledge, while Mac OS X defaults to tcsh, which is actually not being developed anymore, bash, and other Bourne-style shells are the most featureful and powerful shells that exist. COMMAND.COM is not really a shell, it's a poor command interpreter. and by the way your ren isn't correct, "The syntax of the command is incorrect." REN = move, mv in unix. You're moving one file to the new name. There's no easy way to do it in Windows, or Mac OS 9 and below, without extra additional ShArEwArE SoFtWaRe, so using simple unix utilities, like find, awk, and sed, are pretty damn awesome.

much like programming, in unix there are many ways to accomplish something.

LordJavac · Jul 25, 2001, 03:40 PM

Most implementations of find don't resolve {} as part of a string. I suggest a for loop thusly:

<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>
for file in *.jpg
do
mv $file web_$file
done
[/code]

which can be compressed to one line as:
<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>for file in *.jpg; do mv $file web_$file; done[/code]