I have a list of files (thousands of them) like this:
/path/2010 - filename.txt /path/2011 - another file name.txt Always following this pattern: #### - string.txt
I need to change them to look like this:
/path/filename (2010).txt /path/another file name (2011).txt How can I do this quickly with bash, shell, terminal, etc.?
Try rename command:
rename -n 's/(.*) - (.*)(\.txt)/$2 ($1)$3/' *.txt -n(--no-act) option is for preview.
Remove -n to perform substitution.
-bash: rename: command not found). Can I do this with mv?
*.txt expands to too many files for one command line, find /path -name '*.txt' -print0 | xargs -0 rename -n ...
rename is a tiny perl script. I think you can install it in MAC.
-n partUntested.
find /path -name '???? - *.txt' -print0 | while read -d ''; do [[ $REPLY =~ (.*)/(....)\ -\ (.*)\.txt$ ]] || continue path=${BASH_REMATCH[1]} year=${BASH_REMATCH[2]} str=${BASH_REMATCH[3]} echo mv "$REPLY" "$path/$str ($year).txt" done Remove the echo once the generated mv commands look right.
I know you didn't tag it with zsh but you did say shell. Anyway here's how to do it with the zmv function in zsh:
autoload zmv # It's not loaded by default zmv -nvw '* - *.*' '$2 ($1).$3' Remove -n when you're happy with the output.
-v makes zmv verbose. -w implicitly makes a group of each wildcard.
I'd prefer to add this as a comment, but I'm not yet allowed to.
I asked a similar question and received a number of helpful answers over here:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/37355/recursively-rename-subdirectories-that-match-a-regex
Perhaps one of those solutions can be adapted to suit you needs.
