cannot rename files with `[ ]` on its name?

Question

I'd been trying to use the rename function in my debian, I searched here at unix.stackexchange but it seems the solution is not the same in my scenario which files contains []

[800p]-[WOLU-H]-test1.mkv
[800p]-[WOLU-H]-test2.mkv

desired output is just

[WOLU-H]-test1.mkv
[WOLU-H]-test2.mkv

i tried

rename [800p]-[WOLU-H] [WOLU-H] [800p]-*

but it keeps saying:

Bareword found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "800p"
    (Missing operator before p?)
syntax error at (eval 1) line 1, near "800p"

I tried other such as

rename 's/[800p]-[WOLU-H]/[WOLU-H]/' [800p]-*

but output also failed

Invalid [] range "U-H" in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/[800p]-[WOLU-H <-- HERE ]/ at (eval 1) line 1.

can somebody enlighten me with the correct process? Thanks!

UPDATE

I tried this:

rename 's/\[800p\]-\[WOLU-H\]/\[WOLU-H\]/' \[800p\]-*

but error:

Bareword found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "800p"
        (Missing operator before p?)
Backslash found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "p\"
Backslash found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "]\"
        (Missing operator before \?)
Backslash found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "]\"
        (Missing operator before \?)
syntax error at (eval 1) line 1, near "800p"
Unmatched right square bracket at (eval 1) line 1, at end of line
Unmatched right square bracket at (eval 1) line 1, at end of line

I also tried this:

rename "[800p]-[WOLU-H]" "[WOLU-H]" "[800p]-"*

But still error

Bareword found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "800p"
        (Missing operator before p?)
syntax error at (eval 1) line 1, near "800p"

I think the - with numerics are messing?

Answer 1

[ and ] have a special meaning in bash and also in regular expressions, so you have to escape them as \[ and \]. Something like this should work:

rename 's/\[800p\]-\[WOLU-H\]/\[WOLU-H\]/' \[800p\]-*

---

Example:

$ touch [800p]-[WOLU-H]-test1.mkv [800p]-[WOLU-H]-test2.mkv
$ ls
[800p]-[WOLU-H]-test1.mkv  [800p]-[WOLU-H]-test2.mkv
$ rename 's/\[800p\]-\[WOLU-H\]/\[WOLU-H\]/' \[800p\]-*
$ ls
[WOLU-H]-test1.mkv  [WOLU-H]-test2.mkv

Answer 2

Why don't you simply use quotes? So you don't need to escape those [.

rename "[800p]-[WOLU-H]" "[WOLU-H]" "[800p]-"*

(Note the * is out of the "...")

EDIT: Comments make me notice it doesn't work. I don't understand why, because it works here:

$ ls -1
[800p]-[WOLU-H]-foobar.txt
[800p]-[WOLU-H]-hello.txt
[800p]-[WOLU-H]-world.txt

$ rename "[800p]-[WOLU-H]" "[WOLU-H]" "[800p]-[WOLU-H]"*

$ ls -1
[WOLU-H]-foobar.txt
[WOLU-H]-hello.txt
[WOLU-H]-world.txt

$ rename -V
rename (util-linux-ng 2.17.2)

I'm using CentOS 6.6, maybe that's the difference... Anyway, sorry for the wrong answer...