how to remove final "dot" from directory name

Question

A program messed up my directory putting a dot "." on the end of some file and directory names. What is the easiest way to remove them?

I have thought of removing the last character but not all the files/dirs have a dot on the end. Also removing all the dots is a problem, this will make the extension useless.

What I need is a rename to change name.of.the.file.ext. to name.of.the.file.ext and name.of.the.dir. to name.of.the.dir

Thanks!

just write a script that scans the file names and checks for trailing dots, then discards them if necessary. you chould use the ´mv´ command to rename the files/directories — xQuare, May 09 '13 at 11:25

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 09 '13 at 11:25

2

Go over the files with the dot at the end, rename each if possible (i.e. the target file does not exist).

for file in *. ; do
    [[ -e ${file%.} ]] || mv "$file" "${file%.}"
done
echo Not renamed: *.

answered May 09 '13 at 11:25

choroba

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If the user has to descend into subdirectories: `shopt -s globstar; for file in **/*.; ...` . Also, why the `-e` test? Will `*.` return non-existing files? – glenn jackman May 09 '13 at 13:02
@glennjackman: No, it tests the target in order not to overwrite it. – choroba May 09 '13 at 13:09

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 09 '13 at 13:05

1

There might be a rename utility on your machine that will let you do

rename 's/\.$//' *.

Check man rename

answered May 09 '13 at 13:05

glenn jackman

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how to remove final "dot" from directory name

2 Answers2

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