The magic AIX rename command

[Todd Lundstedt]

I am looking for the magic command or script that allows me to rename many files at once… for instance, I have files named

Code:

stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/14/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb14_15:55:41_Thu.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/18/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb18_23:55:41_Mon.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/18/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb18_15:55:40_Mon.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/19/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb19_23:55:42_Tue.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/19/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb19_15:55:41_Tue.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/20/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb20_07:55:40_Wed.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/20/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb20_23:55:42_Wed.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/20/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb20_15:56:10_Wed.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/20/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb20_11:55:41_Wed.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/21/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb21_07:55:41_Thu.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/21/asp_test_fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb21_11:55:41_Thu.idx.Z

and I want to chage the asp_test_ to asp_test.

Code:

stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/14/asp_test.fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb14_15:55:41_Thu.idx.Z
stats/msgHist/2008/Feb/18/asp_test.fr_HCMC_adt_ib.2008Feb18_23:55:41_Mon.idx.Z
.
.
.

I am (almost) certain there is no way to do that in AIX.  I tried pulling it down to dos, and that got rid of the fr_HCMC_adt_ib string as well.

Has anyone scripted this before?  If not, stay tuned, I am working on it.

Topic

[Rob Abbott]

You can use Tcl:

Code:

set file_list [glob *.Z]
foreach file $file_list {
  set newfile [string map “asp_test_ asp_test.” $file]
  file rename $file $newfile
}

Rob Abbott
Cloverleaf Emeritus

[Todd Lundstedt]

GAH!

I hate it when I get stuck on a problem and forget about other tools in my toolbox.  

Thanks!

[Max Drown (Infor)]

I’ve been using this little script by Larry Wall for years.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# renameFiles.pl
#
#  Discussion:
#
#    renameFiles.pl ‘tr/A-Z/a-z/’ *
#
#    will rename every file so that its name is lowercase.
#
#    renameFiles.pl ‘s/.orig$//’ *.orig
#
#    will, for every file that ends in “.orig”, rename the
#    file by removing the trailing “.orig”.
#
#    renameFiles.pl ‘$_ .= “.old”‘ *.cc
#
#    will append “.old” to the name of every file that ends in “.cc”.
#
#  Modified:
#
#    20 March 2004
#
#  Author:
#
#    Larry Wall
#
#  Reference:
#
#    Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington,
#    The Perl Coookbook,
#    Chapter 9.9, Renaming Files
#    O’Reilly, 1999

$op = shift or die “Usage: renameFiles expr [files]n”;
chomp(@ARGV = ) unless @ARGV;
for ( @ARGV )
{
 $was = $_;
 eval $op;
 die $@ if $@;
 rename ( $was, $_ ) unless $was eq $_;
}

-- Max Drown (Infor)

[Author]

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