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Previous: 18.12 Renaming a List of Files Interactively Chapter 18
Linking, Renaming, and Copying Files
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18.13 One More Way to Do It

I couldn't resist throwing my hat into this ring. I can imagine an unsophisticated user who might not trust himself to replace one pattern with another, but doesn't want to repeat a long list of mv commands. Here's a simple script ( 1.5 ) that takes a list of filenames (perhaps provided by wildcards) as input, and prompts the user for a new name for each file:

 
   
-n
   
 #!/bin/sh # Usage: newname files for x  do     echo -n "old name is $x, new name is: "     read newname     mv "$x" "$newname" done

For example:

 
touch
     
 % 

touch junk1 junk2 junk3

 % 

newname junk*

  old name is junk1, new name is: 

test1

 old name is junk2, new name is: 

test2

 old name is junk3, new name is: 

test3

This script is so simple, it's not included on the disc. I just thought I'd throw it in to demonstrate that there's more than one way to do it, even if you aren't using Perl ( 18.10 ) .

- TOR


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