I have following directory structure:
├── file1.json ├── file2.json └── file3.json I want to remove the .json suffix. I know the best way would probably be the rename command or to use a for-loop, but I was wondering if the find command can do that too.
For example appending .json is simple, I following command:
find . -type f -name 'file?' -exec mv {} {}.json \; But now I want to reverse the name process, how can I do that with find?
Your initial process renamed files by appending .json. For example file1 (matching the pattern file?) was renamed to file1.json. The reverse is more complicated and requires a little shell script processing
find . -type f -name 'file?.json' -exec sh -c 'mv -- "$1" "${1%.json}"' _ {} \; This will invoke sh for each file found by find. Typically a more efficient process can be created for very little increase in complexity:
find . -type f -name 'file?.json' -exec sh -c 'for f in "$@"; do mv -- "$f" "${f%.json}"; done' _ {} + Both solutions make use the POSIX shell substitution ${var%suffix}, which returns a value corresponding to $var with the literal text suffix removed (if possible) from the end of its value.
var=hello.txt echo "${var%.txt}" # "hello" because ".txt" is removed echo "${var%.zzz}" # "hello.txt" because there is no ".zzz" suffix echo "$var" # "hello.txt" because the variable itself is unchanged Well, the manual is quite clear:
The string ‘{}' is replaced by the current file name being processed [...]
find does not provide additional placeholders that would manipulate the file name like gnu parallel does with its {.}, {/} etc... however, there is an alternative to find which does: it's called fd (sometimes fdfind) and if you used that one you could run:
fd -e json -x mv -- {} {.} fd -e json means find files with json extension, -x stands for "execute" then {} and {.} are placeholders for file name and respectively file name without extension (same string replacements as gnu parallel).
Note that you'll need to quote {} (as '{}') in rc, akanga and older versions of fish, and {.} in those plus csh, tcsh, zsh -o braceccl, where {/} have a special meaning.
Also beware that by default fd (contrary to find) ignores hidden files (those whose name starts with a . or are below a directory whose name starts with a . but also those mentioned in .ignore/.gitignore/.git/ignore/.fdignore... files; see the -H/--hidden, -I/--no-ignore, -u/--unrestricted options to change that) and those whose name cannot be decoded as UTF-8 (regardless of the locale).
rename. But I was thinking aboutfindand if I can subtstring the{}var :) It doesn't even matter if I usemvorechoor any other command. That was just the first best example I could come up with^^for-loop. I don't know, I just have the feeling that there has to be a better way to do it^^findcan't do it itself. Using{} +with a loop in the shell just optimizes it by starting fewer shell processes.