Finding multiple files recursively and renaming in

Question

I am having files like a_dbg.txt, b_dbg.txt ... in a Suse 10 system. I want to write a bash shell script which should rename these files by removing "_dbg" from them.

Google suggested me to use rename command. So I executed the command rename _dbg.txt .txt *dbg* on the CURRENT_FOLDER

My actual CURRENT_FOLDER contains the below files.

CURRENT_FOLDER/a_dbg.txt
CURRENT_FOLDER/b_dbg.txt
CURRENT_FOLDER/XX/c_dbg.txt
CURRENT_FOLDER/YY/d_dbg.txt

After executing the rename command,

CURRENT_FOLDER/a.txt
CURRENT_FOLDER/b.txt
CURRENT_FOLDER/XX/c_dbg.txt
CURRENT_FOLDER/YY/d_dbg.txt

Its not doing recursively, how to make this command to rename files in all subdirectories. Like XX and YY I will be having so many subdirectories which name is unpredictable. And also my CURRENT_FOLDER will be having some other files also.

Answer 1

You can use this below.

rename --no-act 's/\.html$/\.php/' *.html */*.html

Answer 2

For renaming recursively I use the following commands:

find -iname \*.* | rename -v "s/ /-/g"

Answer 3

You can use find to find all matching files recursively:

$ find . -iname "*dbg*" -exec rename _dbg.txt .txt '{}' \;

---

EDIT: what the '{}' and \; are?

The -exec argument makes find execute rename for every matching file found. '{}' will be replaced with the path name of the file. The last token, \; is there only to mark the end of the exec expression.

All that is described nicely in the man page for find:

 -exec utility [argument ...] ;
         True if the program named utility returns a zero value as its
         exit status.  Optional arguments may be passed to the utility.
         The expression must be terminated by a semicolon (``;'').  If you
         invoke find from a shell you may need to quote the semicolon if
         the shell would otherwise treat it as a control operator.  If the
         string ``{}'' appears anywhere in the utility name or the argu-
         ments it is replaced by the pathname of the current file.
         Utility will be executed from the directory from which find was
         executed.  Utility and arguments are not subject to the further
         expansion of shell patterns and constructs.

Answer 4

If you just want to rename and don't mind using an external tool, then you can use rnm. The command would be:

#on current folder
rnm -dp -1 -fo -ssf '_dbg' -rs '/_dbg//' *

-dp -1 will make it recursive to all subdirectories.

-fo implies file only mode.

-ssf '_dbg' searches for files with _dbg in the filename.

-rs '/_dbg//' replaces _dbg with empty string.

You can run the above command with the path of the CURRENT_FOLDER too:

rnm -dp -1 -fo -ssf '_dbg' -rs '/_dbg//' /path/to/the/directory

Answer 5

with bash:

shopt -s globstar nullglob
rename _dbg.txt .txt **/*dbg*

Answer 6

classic solution:

for f in $(find . -name "*dbg*"); do mv $f $(echo $f | sed 's/_dbg//'); done