Script to rename files

[Preet Dhillon]

Dear Colleagues,

I'm trying to rename files with an extension. The extension needs to be the name of the subdirectory the file is in. So, for example :

The file
/home/fred/myfile.txt
should be renamed to
/home/fred/myfile.txt.fred

The file
/home/fred/c-code/work/mycode.c
should be renamed to
/home/fred/c-code/work/mycode.c.work

The difficulty I'm having is that the path to the files can be several directories deep and I don't know how to identify the subdirectory in which the file lives. Can anyone help?

Many thanks in advance :-)

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Rather than giving you the answer (which in this case is easy); I'll do better by simply pointing you to two commands : basename and dirname. Man those commands and you will have just what you need and learn a little bit in the process.

Regards, Clay

[Robin Wakefield]

Hi Preet,

Lots of ways to do this, e.g.

find /dirname -type f | awk -F/ '{print "mv",$0,$0"."$(NF-1)}'|sh

Leave out the |sh at then end to preview the action.

Rgds, Robin.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Preet:

# cd
# find . -type f -name "*myfile" |xargs -i mv {} {}.old

This uses 'find' to descend subdirectories as necessary to find *files* matching the name "*myfile". For each instance found, the file will be renamed with the ".old" extension.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Wodisch]

Hello Preet,

in addition to the commands needed ("basename" and "dirname" and even "basename" processing the output of "dirname") you should be aware of the fact, that the *new* filename may already exit in the target directory!
Hence you will have to check BEFORE renaming wether the *new* name does already exist and NOT rename then...

Just my $0.02,
Wodisch

[David Lodge]

As you haven't said where and how the script will run, here is my attempt, based one the script running in the current directory:

Pwd=$(pwd)
Sub=${Pwd##*/}
for i in *
do
[[ ${i} = "*" ]] && break
mv ${i} ${i}.${Sub}
done

If you have the full path for a file then you can do:

$ Filename="/var/tmp/dave/a.c"
$ Filename=${Filename%/*}
$ Filename=${Filename##*/}
$ print ${Filename}
dave

HTH

dave

[Wim Rombauts]

What directory do you need ?
If FILENAME is the variable that contains the name of the file including it's path, then
PATH=${FILENAME%/*} returns the full directory (/home/fred) in variable PATH
DIR=${PATH##*/} returns only the lowest directory entry (fred), even if the total path should be /home/group1/fred.
Above two commands are good to get only the directory name immediately above the file.

If you need the name of the directory immediately under /home, do the following :
UNDFERHOME=${FILENAME#*home/} returns everything after /home/ (=fred/file.txt)
DIR=${UNDERHOME%%/*} remvers ecerything from the first slash, leaving only "fred".

At last, just execute "mv $FILENAME $FILENAME.$DIR"

To get all file, use
for FILE in *.txt
do
<script> $FILE
done
If you need only to rename the files in a directory without checking subdirectories.
Else, use
find -name "*.txt" -exec <script> {} \;

I hope this helps.

Does this help.

[Preet Dhillon]

Dear Colleagues,

Many thanks to you all for your prompt replies. I've assigned points for you all - Clay gets a couple extra for teaching me two new commands I hadn't come across before.

Thanks again, guys - you're the best.