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Accepted
guettli
Asked: 2017-01-19 23:48:19 +0800 CST

Rename files with one line command

  • 772

I have this directory, and want to rename the files:

===> ls -1 Der-vierte-Weise/
10 - 10 - Erkenntniss.ogg
1 - 01 - Hoffnung.ogg
11 - 11 - Wahrheit.ogg
12 - 12 - Dankbarkeit.ogg
13 - 13 - Kredits.ogg
2 - 02 - Familie.ogg
3 - 03 - Demut.ogg
4 - 04 - Freude.ogg
5 - 05 - Schoenheit.ogg
6 - 06 - Solidaritaet.ogg
7 - 07 - Entscheidung.ogg
8 - 08 - Hilfe.ogg
9 - 09 - Unterstuetzung.ogg

The result should look like this:

===> ls -1 Der-vierte-Weise/
01 - Hoffnung.ogg
02 - Familie.ogg
...

I would like to solve this with common shell tools.

command-line

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You could use rename...

    rename -n 's/^[0-9]+ - //' *

    Remove -n after testing to actually rename the files

    Explanation

    • s/old/new/ replace old with new
    • ^ start of string
    • [0-9]+ some numbers
    • 18

  2. bash parameter expansion to strip off the required portion from start:

    for f in *[[:blank:]]*.ogg; do echo mv -i -- "$f" "${f#[[:digit:]]*-[[:blank:]]}"; done

    Expanded form:

    for f in *[[:blank:]]*.ogg; do 
    echo mv -i -- "$f" "${f#[[:digit:]]*-[[:blank:]]}"
done

    echo is for dry-running; get rid of it for actual action:

    for f in *[[:blank:]]*.ogg; do mv -i -- "$f" "${f#[[:digit:]]*-[[:blank:]]}"; done

    Example:

    % ls -1
1 - 01 - Hoffnung.ogg
2 - 02 - Familie.ogg

% for f in *[[:blank:]]*.ogg; do mv -i -- "$f" "${f#[[:digit:]]*-[[:blank:]]}"; done 

% ls -1                                                                             
01 - Hoffnung.ogg
02 - Familie.ogg
    • 9