Linux batch rename files

Question

I am going to rename image files and pdf files in a folder in Linux.

It should be recursively as some files are in sub-sub folder.

Current file name pattern is like:

an-yt-h-in-g-123word-123456-anything.jpg (.png .pdf)

My goal pattern is

123456-anything.jpg (.png .pdf)

In a short, I want to remove everything before -NumberString-, and keep everything afterwards (includes the NumberString).

Can anyone help? Thanks a lot

Have you read the tag info of [tag:batch-file]? I assume not as you would know it is related to Windows otherwise... — aschipfl, May 20 '16 at 00:57
thanks for pick it up. I typed "batch", and it auto come up with batch-file, it's a mistake. — user1982312, May 20 '16 at 01:02

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 20 '16 at 01:21

1

If all your files are named strictly as you said, you may use the command

echo $s | awk -F'-' '{printf "%s-%s", $5, $6}'

to get the new name, assuming that the original filename is held by s.

The renaming can be done simply with mv like

mv $s $(echo $s | awk -F'-' '{printf "%s-%s", $5, $6}')

where s is the original filename as well.

answered May 20 '16 at 01:21

pjhades

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Thanks PJ. I did not explain clearly. The current file name pattern could be any length. It's like x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-xxxx-123456-xxxxx.jpg. – user1982312 May 20 '16 at 01:32
1

The last 2 fields regardless of number of hyphens would be `awk -F'-' '{printf "%s-%s", $(NF-1), $(NF)}'` – indiv May 20 '16 at 01:49
Right, @indiv 's answer is better than mine. – pjhades May 20 '16 at 02:49

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 20 '16 at 02:06

This command will check position of last "number string" and output the sub string from this position to the end. You can change ls command to something else.

ls | awk -F '-' '{ for(i=NF; i>=0; i--) { if (match($i, /^[0-9]+$/)) { print $i; for (j=i+1; j<=NF; j++){ printf "-%s" ,$j }; print "\n" } } }' $1 ORS=""

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 20 '16 at 03:40

an-yt-h-in-g-123word-123456-anything.jpg

For a flat directory of jpegs:

rename 's/.*-[0-9]+-[A-Za-z]+\./\1-\2/.' *.jpg

For recursively visiting the current dir:

find . \(-name "*.jpg" -o -name "*.pdf" \) -exec rename 's/.*-[0-9]+-[A-Za-z]+\./\1-\2/.' {} ";"

Linux batch rename files

3 Answers3