Bash Regex: Remove charcters from filenames

Question

How we can bulk rename multiple files? What I seek is a regex approach to remove random characters from the beginning of the filenames?

For example suppose I have the following files in a directory

_3cc10c0294ce15295e17e737a1d4dde1_C1W2L08.pptx
_7beaa0a223aca1d64505e8382275bb8e_C1W2L09-2.05.53-PM.pptx
_090fd2695e7f30570037a0fae658035a_C1W2L07.pptx

and here is what i intend to see:

C1W2L08.pptx
C1W2L09-2.05.53-PM.pptx
C1W2L07.pptx

What did you attempt in trying to solve the problem? – Inian Aug 30 '17 at 09:54 — Inian, Aug 30 '17 at 09:54
@Inian I rename each file one by one by hand! – sci9 Aug 30 '17 at 09:56 — sci9, Aug 30 '17 at 09:56

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 30 '17 at 09:57

0

Use rename

rename 's/_.{32}_//' *.pptx

Deletes the underscores and the 32 characters between them.

answered Aug 30 '17 at 09:57

pacholik

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Merci for the simple pretty approach. – sci9 Aug 30 '17 at 10:08

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 30 '17 at 09:57

0

for i in *.pptx
do
  mv $i ${i#_*_}
done

#{var#prefix} will remove the prefix; * matches a sequence of characters. See more at man bash, look for "Parameter Expansion".

answered Aug 30 '17 at 09:57

Amadan

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 30 '17 at 10:10

0

This code will select all the files of a similar structure and remove their prefix.

for file in _[a-z0-9]*pptx; do
       mv -- "$file" "${file/_*_/}";
done

answered Aug 30 '17 at 10:10

Andrei Bazarenko

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Bash Regex: Remove charcters from filenames

3 Answers3