rename

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 occur-
       rence 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.

       -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.

       -V, --version
              Display version information and exit.

       -h, --help
              Display help text and exit.

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.

WARNING
       The renaming has no safeguards by default or without any one of the op-
       tions --no-overwrite, --interactive or --no-act.  If the user has  per-
       mission  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

SEE ALSO
       mv(1)

AVAILABILITY
       The  rename  command is part of the util-linux package and is available
       from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

util-linux                         June 2011                         RENAME(1)