Inserting strings to file names with different extensions

Question

I have a number of files of different type in a directory: file, file0, file.txt, file.jpg etc.

Some with extensions, some without.

I want to rename files in a directory by inserting 'final' to them.

So they would appear as: filefinal, file0final, filefinal.txt, filefinal.jpg etc.

I imagine that to deal with the presence of files with and without extensions, I'll have to use some if statements, maybe not. To deal with the files with extension I've been thinking that perhaps I could determine the index of the decimal and then add the 'final' string right before that. But I'm not sure how to do that or if it's the best approach.

Any tips greatly appreciated.

ergonaut · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-12 23:09:20Z

1

Rather than venture into some one liner script, I would opt for a safer approach.

Dump all your filenames in a file. eg.:

find . > allMyFiles
use 'vi allMyFiles' and duplicate the names

%s/.*/"&" "&"/g
add your replacements

%s/ (.)(..$)/ \1final\2/g
Check your file and remove obvious errors:

"." "final." <<--- remove
Add the mv command

%s/^/mv /g
Change to execute permissions and execute your script.

chmod 700 allMyFiles ./allMyFiles

answered Oct 12, 2015 at 23:09

ergonaut

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2 Comments

Hastur Over a year ago

Since you dump the output of find in a file this approach results similar to parse the ls output. I know that you consider it in your point 4., but each human action is source of error :-)

Hastur Over a year ago

I agree... but you can always create the output as a security layer to check before execute it...

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