Renaming multiple files with rename

Question

I need to rename files in batch--the other questions I browsed don't exactly address my problem. The names of my files are generated non-deterministically, so I can't predict what they will be named. I do know that they will start with NORMAL and end with -lib*. I'd like to replace everything in between with some string X. For example,

|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib1.concordant
|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib1.deletion
|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib1.divergent
|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib1.inversion
|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib1.translocation
|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib4.concordant
|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib4.deletion
|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib4.divergent
|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib4.insertion
|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib4.inversion
|   |   |-- NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib4.translocation

So it will probably be of the form rename "s/something/X/", but I don't know what that something should be, as I don't know how to use regex.

Answer 1

The useful Perl powered rename isn't always available on all distros. For example, Fedora and CentOS (and presumably RedHat) use a basic rename utility that does basic search and replace and nothing much else.

If you're unfortunate enough to be using one of those, then something like the following may help:

for oldname in *; do
    newname=$(echo "$oldname" | sed -e 's/\(NORMAL\).*\(-lib.*\)/\1X\2/')
    mv "$oldname" "$newname"
done

Answer 2

If you are lucky enough to have rename available, then the following should be sufficient:

rename 's/(NORMAL).*(-lib)/$1X$2/' *

Answer 3

There are two unrelated programs called rename. The one found on Debian and derivatives (Ubuntu, Mint, …) is a Perl script, and its first argument is a Perl expression that transforms the old name into the new name. With that script, you can do

rename 's/.*-lib/NORMAL_X-lib/' NORMAL_*-lib*

The s operator performs a regular expression replacement. There are oodles of regular expression tutorials on the web, e.g. 1. .*-lib matches the string up to the last occurrence of -lib (.* matches any string), so s/.*-lib/NORMAL_X-lib/ replaces the NORMAL_blahblah-lib part by NORMAL_X-lib.

If you have a Linux distribution that isn't derived from Debian, then the rename utility is one that is suitable for almost no practical task. You can use a shell loop instead.

for x in NORMAL_*-lib*; do
  mv "$x" "NORMAL_X-lib${x##*-lib}"
done

${x##*-lib} is the value of the variable x minus the part up to the last occurrence of -lib. This is standard parameter expansion syntax.

This task is easiest in zsh, with its zmv function. Put autoload -U zmv in your .zshrc (or run it on the command line for a once-off), then run

zmv 'NORMAL_*-(lib*)' 'NORMAL_X-$1'

Answer 4

You could consider using lookarounds, like (?<=NORMAL).*?(?=-lib) i.e.

$ rename -v -n -- 's/(?<=NORMAL).*?(?=-lib)/X/' *
NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib4.insertion renamed as NORMALX-lib4.insertion
NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib4.inversion renamed as NORMALX-lib4.inversion
NORMAL_H_LS-A7-A0CE-10A-01D-A017-09-lib4.translation renamed as NORMALX-lib4.translation