Automated renaming of linux filenames to a new filenames that are legal in windows

Question

I would like to rename a linux file to a filename that is legal in windows. It should not be longer than is allowed and should not have characters that are not allowed in windows. Sometimes I copy the title from papers to a filename and they have special characters such as –, ®, or ?

Also there is there are some kind of characters sometimes at the ends of lines generated when copying and pasting a title from a pdf. You can see them when using sed -n 'l':

echo 'Estrogen receptor agonists and estrogen attenuate TNF-α induced
α
apoptosis in VSC4.1 motoneurons.pdf' | sed -n 'l'
Estrogen receptor agonists and estrogen attenuate TNF-\316\261 induce\
d$
\316\261$
apoptosis in VSC4.1 motoneurons.pdf$

or

echo 'A synthetic review of the ﬁve molecular Sorlie’s subtypes in
breast cancer' | sed -n 'l' 
A synthetic review of the \357\254\201ve molecular Sorlie\342\200\231\
s subtypes in$
breast cancer$

I have started a script but it is not elegant and incomplete. Has someone done something like this already or is there a fast elegant way to do it?

fn2win="$1"
testFn=$(echo "$fn2win" | sed -n 'l')
#SPEC_CHAR="ÀÁÂÃÄÅÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝÞàáâãäåçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöøùúûüýþÿ"
#NORM_CHAR="AAAAAACEEEEIIIIDNOOOOOOUUUUYPaaaaaaceeeeiiiionoooooouuuuyby"
#SPEC_LOW_CHAR="aàáâãäåāăąbḃcćçčĉċdḑďḋđeèéěêëēĕęėfḟƒgǵģǧĝğġǥhĥħiìíîĩïīĭįıjĵkḱķǩlĺļľłmṁnńņňñoòóôõöōŏøpṗqrŕŗřsśşšŝṡſtţťṫŧuùúûũüůūŭųvwẁẃŵẅxyỳýŷÿzźžż"
#NORM_LOW_CHAR="aaaaaaaaaabbccccccdddddeeeeeeeeeefffgggggggghhhiiiiiiiiiijjkkkklllllmmnnnnnoooooooooppqrrrrssssssstttttuuuuuuuuuuvwwwwwxyyyyyzzzz"
#SPEC_CAP_CHAR="AÀÁÂÃÄÅĀĂĄBḂCĆÇČĈĊDḐĎḊĐEÈÉĚÊËĒĔĘĖFḞGǴĢǦĜĞĠǤHĤĦIÌÍÎĨÏĪĬĮİJĴKḰĶǨĸLĹĻĽŁMṀNŃŅŇÑOÒÓÔÕÖŌŎØPṖQRŔŖŘSŚŞŠŜṠTŢŤṪŦUÙÚÛŨÜŮŪŬŲVWẀẂŴẄXYỲÝŶŸZŹŽŻ"
#SPEC_CAP_CHAR="AAAAAAAAAABBCCCCCCDDDDDEEEEEEEEEEFFGGGGGGGGHHHIIIIIIIIIIJJKKKKKLLLLLMMNNNNNOOOOOOOOOPPQRRRRSSSSSSTTTTTUUUUUUUUUUVWWWWWXYYYYYZZZZ"
#sed -e "y/'$SPEC_CHAR'/'$NORM_CHAR'/"
if [ "$fn2win" != "$testFn" ]; then
  newLinFn=$(echo "$fn2win" | fromdos | tr "\n" " " |\
     sed -e "
     s/[?()\[\]=+<>:;©®”,*|]/_/g
     s/"$'\t'"/ /g
     s/–/-/g
     s/’/'/g
     s/α/alpha/g
     s/β/beta/g
     s/µ/micro/g
     s/Æ/AE/g
     s/Ǽ/AE/g
     s/æ/ae/g
     s/ǽ/ae/g
     s/Ǳ/DZ/g
     s/Ǆ/DZ/g
     s/ǅ/Dz/g
     s/ǲ/Dz/g
     s/ǳ/dz/g
     s/ǆ/dz/g
     s/ﬀ/ff/g
     s/ﬁ/fi/g
     s/ﬂ/fl/g
     s/ﬃ/ffi/g
     s/ﬄ/ffl/g
     s/ﬅ/ft/g
     s/Ĳ/IJ/g
     s/ĳ/ij/g
     s/Ǉ/LJ/g
     s/ǈ/Lj/g
     s/ǉ/lj/g
     s/Ǌ/NJ/g
     s/ǋ/Nj/g
     s/ǌ/nj/g
     s/Œ/OE/g
     s/œ/oe/g
     s/ß/SZ/g
     s/\"/_/g
     s/[[:cntrl:]]/_/g
     s/\ $//g
     " |\
   fold -s -w 251 | head -1 | sed 's/\ $/.pdf/')
  if [ "$fn2win" != "$newLinFn" ]; then
      mv "$fn2win" "$newLinFn"
    fi
fi
winFn=$(echo "z:"$newLinFn | sed 's/\//\\/g' )

I don't think this is off-topic, I'm not sure why there was a close vote for this — D W, Dec 10 '10 at 21:26
Someone probably felt that stringing together a bunch of sed operations looks more like a usage question than a programming one. It's a debatable position. — Chris Stratton, Dec 10 '10 at 21:43
Thank you for the explanation. I think this is a useful function to be able to do. I need to use PDF-XChange Viewer for it's highlighting capabilities through wine and this would be useful for that. I look at, and highlight hundreds of papers as I'm sure other researchers do, so someone must have ran into this problem. Where is an appropriate place to ask this question? — D W, Dec 10 '10 at 21:47
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-sed3.html seems useful to organize the sed commands — D W, Dec 10 '10 at 22:21
Related to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/620605/how-to-make-a-valid-windows-filename-from-an-arbitrary-string ? — blueberryfields, Dec 11 '10 at 00:04
@blueberryfields: That solution is specific to .Net, and just replaces the characters with dashes. — OliJG, Dec 12 '10 at 02:09

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 11 '10 at 09:12

1

This looks like it should do it: http://pwet.fr/man/linux/commandes/konwert

answered Dec 11 '10 at 09:12

OliJG

2,650
1
16
15

I'm not sure this would work for what I am trying to do, it seems to convert encodings but I don't see an obvious conversion for my purpose. – D W Dec 13 '10 at 23:35
Converting to ascii would take you most of the way there, limiting the number of hardcoded conversions you have left to handle. – OliJG Dec 14 '10 at 10:43
+1 `konwert utf8-ascii` is helpful and at least gets rid of international characters and converts ligatures into their separate characters. `konwert utf8-tex` is also interesting because it converts greek symbols such as α into \alpha. – D W Dec 15 '10 at 17:30

Automated renaming of linux filenames to a new filenames that are legal in windows

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