I am trying to rename a bunch of files recursively using Powershell 2.0. The directory structure looks like this:
Leaflets
+ HTML
- File1
- File2
...
+ HTMLICONS
+ IMAGES
- Image1
- Image2
- File1
- File2
...
+ RTF
- File1
- File2
...
+ SGML
- File1
- File2
...
I am using the following command:
get-childitem Leaflets -recurse | rename -newname { $_.name.ToLower() }
and it seems to rename the files, but complains about the subdirectories:
Rename-Item : Source and destination path must be different.
I reload the data monthly using robocopy, but the directories do not change, so I can rename them by hand. Is there any way to get get-children
to skip the subdirectories (like find Leaflets -type f ...
)?
Thanks.
UPDATE: It appears that the problem is with files that are already all lower case. I tried changing the command to:
get-childitem Leaflets -recurse | if ($_.name -ne $_name.ToLower()) rename -newname { $_.name.ToLower() }
but now Powershell complains that if
is not a cmdlet, function, etc.
Can I pipe the output of get-childitem
to an if
statement?
UPDATE 2: This works:
$files=get-childitem Leaflets -recurse
foreach ($file in $files)
{
if ($file.name -ne $file.name.ToLower())
{
rename -newname { $_.name.ToLower() }
}
}
Even though you have already posted your own answer, here is a variation:
dir Leaflets -r | % { if ($_.Name -cne $_.Name.ToLower()) { ren $_.FullName $_.Name.ToLower() } }
Some points:
- dir is an alias for Get-ChildItem (and -r is short for -Recurse).
- % is an alias for ForEach-Object.
- -cne is a case-sensitive comparison. -ne ignores case differences.
- $_ is how you reference the current item in the ForEach-Object loop.
- ren is an alias for Rename-Item.
- FullName is probably preferred as it ensures you will be touching the right file.
If you wanted to excludes directories from being renamed, you could include something like:
if ((! $_.IsPsContainer) -and $_.Name -cne $_.Name.ToLower()) { ... }
Hopefully this is helpful in continuing to learn and explore PowerShell.
Keep in mind that you can pipe directly to Rename-Item and use Scriptblocks with the -NewName
parameter (because it also accepts pipeline input) to simplify this task:
Get-ChildItem -r | Where {!$_.PSIsContainer} |
Rename-Item -NewName {$_.FullName.ToLower()}
and with aliases:
gci -r | ?{!$_.PSIsContainer} | rni -New {$_.FullName.ToLower()}
slight tweak on this, if you only want to update the names of files of a particular type try this:
get-childitem *.jpg | foreach { if ($_.Name -cne $_.Name.ToLower()) { ren $_.FullName $_.Name.ToLower() } }
this will only lowercase the jpg files within your folder and ignore the rest
You need to temporarily rename them to something else then name them back all lower case.
$items = get-childitem -Directory -Recurse
foreach ($item in $items)
{
if ($item.name -eq $item.name.ToLower())
{
$temp = $item.FullName.ToLower() + "_"
$name = $item.FullName.ToLower()
ren $name $temp
ren $temp $name
}
There are many issues with the previous given answers due to the nature of how Rename-Item
, Piping, Looping and the Windows Filesystem works. Unfortunatly the the most simple (not using aliases for readability here) solution I found to rename all files and folders inside of a given folder to lower-case is this one:
Get-ChildItem -Path "/Path/To/You/Folder" -Recurse | Where{ $_.Name -cne $_.Name.ToLower() } | ForEach-Object { $tn="$($_.Name)-temp"; $tfn="$($_.FullName)-temp"; $nn=$_.Name.ToLower(); Rename-Item -Path $_.FullName -NewName $tn; Rename-Item -Path $tfn -NewName $nn -Force; Write-Host "New Name: $($nn)";}
It's more idomatic in PowerShell to use where
instead of if
in a pipeline:
gci -Recurse Leaflets |
? { $_.Name -ne $_.Name.ToLower()) } |
% { ren -NewName $_.Name.ToLower() }