what is the best way to rename a set of files using a regex?

Question

I have a directory full of files name: "file1.mp4.mp4 file1.mp4.mp4 file1.mp4.mp4 ...".

I would like to rename all of them using find from "file1.mp4.mp4" to "file1.mp4" and some other bash tools it would look something like this but with a regular expression:

find . -name "*.mp4" |xargs echo -0

Have a look here: http://stackoverflow.com/q/417916/900873 – Kevin Jan 13 '12 at 17:09 — Kevin, Jan 13 '12 at 17:09

snim2 · Answer 1 · 2012-01-13T19:47:02.490

2

Use rename. If all the files are in the same directory, you can do this:

rename 's/\.mp4.mp4$/.mp4/' *.mp4.mp4

Otherwise you might want something like:

rename 's/\.mp4.mp4$/.mp4/' `find . -name "*.mp4.mp4"`

Also, to see what would happen when you run rename, just to debug the statement, do this:

rename --no-act 's/\.mp4.mp4$/.mp4/' *.mp4.mp4

This even works if the filename contains a space, for example:

$ touch foo.mp4.mp4
$ touch "bar baz.mp4.mp4"
$ ls
bar baz.mp4.mp4  foo.mp4.mp4
$ rename  's/\.mp4.mp4$/.mp4/' *.mp4.mp4
$ ls
bar baz.mp4  foo.mp4
$

edited Jan 13 '12 at 19:47

answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:11

snim2

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what `rename` command is this? mine doesn't work with 's/\.mp4.mp4$/.mp4/' or recognise `--no-act`. – dogbane Jan 13 '12 at 17:15
I'm running Ubuntu 11.11. As far as I know, `rename` comes as standard in the version of BASH that ships with Ubuntu. If you have a look at your man page, perhaps the syntax of your `rename` is different to mine? – snim2 Jan 13 '12 at 17:53
the problem with your solution is that when there is a space in the file name it will not work. – fenec Jan 13 '12 at 19:16
It does on my machine; I've edited the answer to add a suitable example. – snim2 Jan 13 '12 at 19:47
The program rename isn't part of the Bash, but part of a Perl package. – user unknown Jan 14 '12 at 10:01
Thanks, that's useful to know. – snim2 Jan 14 '12 at 11:45
It is part of the `File::Rename` Perl package: http://perladvent.org/2011/2011-12-18.html – Vincent Zoonekynd Jan 15 '12 at 11:17

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:16

2

Or try this simple bash command in a loop?

mv /path/to/file.{mp4.mp4, mp4}

answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:16

Will

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:28

1

Try something like this -

for file in /path/to/dir/*.mp4; do 
    mv "$file" "${file%.*}"; 
done

answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:28

jaypal singh

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:10

0

Do you have the rename command? If so, you can try:

rename .mp4 "" *.mp4.mp4

This will remove the final .mp4 suffix from all files with extension .mp4.mp4 in the current directory.

answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:10

dogbane

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:23

0

find . -name '*.mp4.mp4' -exec echo mv {} \`dirname {}/\`/\`basename {} .mp4\` \; > mp4.sh && ./mp4.sh && rm mp4.sh

answered Jan 13 '12 at 17:23

Eugen Rieck

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the problem with your solution is that when there is a space in the file name it will not work. – fenec Jan 13 '12 at 19:21
Which is quite consistent with the OQ, changes are trivial if needed. – Eugen Rieck Jan 13 '12 at 19:24

what is the best way to rename a set of files using a regex?

5 Answers5