Rename all files in directory while preserving any file extension

Question

I have folder with about 1200 files that I need to rename. Theit file extension is .jpg, .gif, and .png for the most part.

Here are some examples:

    Awesome\ FB\ \ (462).jpg   
    Bonus\ FB\ Cover\ Pics\ (80).jpg
    Awesome\ FB\ \ (463).jpg   
    Bonus\ FB\ Cover\ Pics\ (81).jpg
    Awesome\ FB\ \ (464).jpg   
    Bonus\ FB\ Cover\ Pics\ (82).jpg
    Awesome\ FB\ \ (465).jpg   
    Bonus\ FB\ Cover\ Pics\ (83).jpg

I tried:

    rename 's/\.{???} $/-img4sm.{???}/' ./*.{???}

I also tried this but just placing a .jpg or .gif instead of {???}, and replacing the {} with [].

I also tried:

    find . -type f -iname '*.???' -exec rename 's/\.{???} $/-img4sm.{???}/' ./*.{} +

I've managed to use this command without error messages in CloudLinux (CentOS), but no file names changed.

Please help me. Thank you!

Answer 1

Unfortunately, rename means different things on different versions of Unix. In particular on Fedora, and therefore CentOS I imagine, rename will only accept simple strings, and not a perl expression like you are using (which would work on debian).

However, it seems all you want to do is add "-img4sm." in front of the .jpg, .png and .gif suffix, so with your version of rename try:

rename -- .jpg -img4sm.jpg *.jpg
rename -- .png -img4sm.png *.png
rename -- .gif -img4sm.gif *.gif

Always copy your directory somewhere as backup in case these commands do not do what you expect.

---

If you prefer, you can install the more sophisticated perl script rename from cpan by using the cpan command if you already know it, or simply by downloading the link on that page to the download tar. Unpack the tar and "build" the script with

tar xf rename-1.9.tar.gz
cd rename-1.9
perl Makefile.PL 
make
mv bin/rename ~/bin/prename

where the final mv is to some private bin dir in your PATH. Use the name prename to avoid confusion with the rename command you already have. You can then use this to do your action with, eg:

prename -n  's/\.(jpg|png|gif)$/-mg4sm.$1/' -- *.{jpg,gif,png}

where here -n means just show what would happen, without doing it.

Answer 2

With zsh:

autoload zmv # best in ~/.zshrc
zmv -n '(*).(png|jpg|gif)' '$1-mg4sm.$2'

Remove the -n to actually do it.

Otherwise, POSIXly, you can always do:

for file in *.png *.jpg *.gif; do
  echo mv -i -- "$file" "${file%.*}-mg4sm.${file##*.}"
done

(remove echo to actually do it).

Answer 3

Here is a solution using php based on this answer. Create a file eg myrename.php with the following contents:

<?php
$test = 1;
if(!chdir('/tmp/mydir')) echo "failed chdir\n";
else if ($handle = opendir('.')) {
    while (false !== ($fileName = readdir($handle))) {
        $newName = preg_replace("/\.(jpg|gif|png)$/i","-img4sm.\\1",$fileName);
        if($newName!=$fileName){
            if($test){
                echo "$fileName -> $newName\n";
            }else{
                if(!rename($fileName, $newName))echo "failed $fileName -> $newName\n";
            }
        }
    }
    closedir($handle);
}
?>

replace /tmp/mydir by the path of your directory. Run the script with

php myrename.php

and it will print out the old filename and new filename for each matched file. If this is ok, change $test = 1; to $test = 0; and run it for real. Remember to backup the files somewhere first in case of problems.