RENAME(1) User Commands RENAME(1)
NAME
rename - rename files
SYNOPSIS
rename [options] expression replacement file...
DESCRIPTION
rename will rename the specified files by replacing the first
occurrence of expression in their name by replacement.
OPTIONS
-s, --symlink
Do not rename a symlink but its target.
-v, --verbose
Show which files were renamed, if any.
-n, --no-act
Do not make any changes; add --verbose to see what would be made.
-a, --all
Replace all occurrences of expression rather than only the first
one.
-l, --last
Replace the last occurrence of expression rather than the first
one.
-o, --no-overwrite
Do not overwrite existing files. When --symlink is active, do not
overwrite symlinks pointing to existing targets.
-i, --interactive
Ask before overwriting existing files.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Print version and exit.
WARNING
The renaming has no safeguards by default or without any one of the
options --no-overwrite, --interactive or --no-act. If the user has
permission to rewrite file names, the command will perform the action
without any questions. For example, the result can be quite drastic
when the command is run as root in the /lib directory. Always make a
backup before running the command, unless you truly know what you are
doing.
INTERACTIVE MODE
As most standard utilities rename can be used with a terminal device
(tty in short) in canonical mode, where the line is buffered by the tty
and you press ENTER to validate the user input. If you put your tty in
cbreak mode however, rename requires only a single key press to answer
the prompt. To set cbreak mode, run for example:
sh -c 'stty -icanon min 1; "$0" "$@"; stty icanon' rename -i from to files
EXIT STATUS
0
all requested rename operations were successful
1
all rename operations failed
2
some rename operations failed
4
nothing was renamed
64
unanticipated error occurred
EXAMPLES
Given the files foo1, ..., foo9, foo10, ..., foo278, the commands
rename foo foo00 foo?
rename foo foo0 foo??
will turn them into foo001, ..., foo009, foo010, ..., foo278. And
rename .htm .html *.htm
will fix the extension of your html files. Provide an empty string for
shortening:
rename '_with_long_name' '' file_with_long_name.*
will remove the substring in the filenames.
SEE ALSO
mv(1)
REPORTING BUGS
For bug reports, use the issue tracker at
https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues.
AVAILABILITY
The rename command is part of the util-linux package which can be
downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
<https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.
util-linux 2.38.1 2022-05-11 RENAME(1)
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