mv: add number to file name if the target exists

Question

I'm moving a file to a different folder and would like to add some kind of index to the newly moved file if a file with the same name exists already (the old one should remain untouched). For example, if file.pdf existed I would prefer something like file1.pdf or file_1.pdf for the next file with the same name.

Here I've found a variant for the opposite idea — but I don't want to make a "backup".

Does mv have some parameters out of the box for that scenario? I use Ubuntu Linux.

Answer 1

As the answer to the question you linked already states, mv can suffix files that would otherwise get overwritten by the file you move with a number to give them a unique file name:

mv --backup=t <source_file> <dest_file>

The command works by appending the next unused number suffix to the file that was first in the destination directory. The file you are moving will keep its original name.

However, this will appends suffixes like .~1~, which seems to be not what you want:

$ ls
file.pdf
file.pdf.~1~
file.pdf.~2~

You can rename those files in a second step though to get the names in a format like file_1.pdf instead of file.pdf.~1~, e.g. like this:

rename 's/((?:\..+)?)\.~(\d+)~$/_$2$1/' *.~*~

This takes all files that end with the unwanted backup suffix (by matching with the shell glob *.~*~) and lets the rename tool try to match the regular expression ((?:\..+)?)\.~(\d+)~$ on the file name. If this matches, it will capture the index from the .~1~-like suffix as second group ($2) and optionally, if the file name has an extension before that suffix like .pdf, that will be captured by the first group ($1). Then it replaces the complete matched file name part with _$2$1, inserting the captured values instead of the placeholders though.

Basically it will rename e.g. file.pdf.~1~ to file_1.pdf and something.~42~ to something_42, but it can not detect whether a file has multiple extensions, so e.g. archive.tar.gz.~5~ would become archive.tar_5.gz

Answer 2

While the simple substitution-based renaming of files in Linux is relatively facile, something to note on Linux distributions is that there are multiple rename command packages, as noted here:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31408764/using-regex-with-rename-version-from-util-linux

Complicating this issue are more complex file renaming approached involving regex (regular expressions) commands.

The rename solution provided by @ByteCommander did not work for me; here are the specifics and a solution (I'm on Arch Linux).

$ which rename
  /usr/bin/rename

$ rename --version
  rename from util-linux 2.36.1

$ pacman -Ss util-linux | grep installed
  core/util-linux 2.36.1-4 [installed]
  core/util-linux-libs 2.36.1-4 [installed]

$ cd /home/victoria/zzz/
$ pwd; ls -l
  /home/victoria/zzz
  total 16
  -rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria 5 Dec 17 09:17 'apples and bananas.mkv'
  -rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria 5 Dec 17 09:17 'apples and bananas.mkv.~123~'
  -rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria 5 Dec 17 09:17  apples.mkv
  -rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria 5 Dec 17 09:17  apples.mkv.~123~

## Note the use of bacticks ( ` ); for readability I split the `for` 
## command over two lines; however, it is a one-line command):

$ for f in *; do mv 2>/dev/null -v "$f" "`echo $f |
  sed -r 's/(.*)\.(.*)\.~([0-9]{1,})~$/\1_\3.\2/'`"; done

  renamed 'apples and bananas.mkv.~123~' -> 'apples and bananas_123.mkv'
  renamed 'apples.mkv.~123~' -> 'apples_123.mkv'

$ ls -l
  total 16
  -rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria 5 Dec 17 09:17  apples_123.mkv
  -rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria 5 Dec 17 09:17 'apples and bananas_123.mkv'
  -rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria 5 Dec 17 09:17 'apples and bananas.mkv'
  -rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria 5 Dec 17 09:17  apples.mkv

Comments:

• Using a sed regex command I capture three parts of the source filename, then rearrange them; see (e.g.) https://www.gnu.org/software/sed/manual/html_node/Regular-Expressions.html for explanations of the syntax, and/or web searches for regex capture groups and backreferences, e.g. https://www.regular-expressions.info/refcapture.html

• I get warnings from the command above, which I ignore (redirect/hide) with 2>/dev/null

• See also re: comments on the rename command(s), and the use of the find command to rename files.

  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55643041/how-do-i-rename-files-found-with-the-find-command

  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/152514/how-do-i-rename-all-folders-and-files-to-lowercase-on-linux

Answer 3

Ok, don't judge me by my not poor bash-skills but this solution worked for me. (I appreciated Byte Commanders solution yet it's due to its restrictions not what I was looking for)

So here's my small script that does the job...

• $2 is the path
• $3 the filename
• $punktpdf is just ".pdf"

So here's my little script...

if [ -s $2$3$punktpdf ]; then
    for i in `seq 1 100000`;
        do
            if [ ! -s $2$3$i$punktpdf ]; then
                if mv scan.pdf $2$3$i$punktpdf; then                        
                    echo $3$i$punktpdf
                    exit 0
                    break
               else                        
                    echo 1
                    break
               fi
           fi
        done
    else
        #Regular mv
    fi

Answer 4

#!/bin/bash
outputFile="/videos/test/test.mp4"
version=0
preservedOutputFile="${outputFile%.*}-prev-v$version.mp4"
while [ -f "$preservedOutputFile" ]
do
    echo "$preservedOutputFile exist!"
    version=$((version+1))
    preservedOutputFile="${outputFile%.*}-prev-v$version.mp4"
done

if [ $version -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "Preservering existing \"$outputFile\" by renaming it to \"$preservedOutputFile\"!"
    #rename file
    mv "$outputFile" "$preservedOutputFile"
else
    echo "$outputFile doesn't exist! No need to preserve!"
fi

Answer 5

I created move command. move command add index if file exists.

npm i -g @gauravnumber/move

Example

Folder Structure

.
├── 1.txt
├── 2.txt
├── 3.txt
├── 4.txt
├── 5.txt
└── 6.txt

Type below command.

move 1.txt 2.txt

2.txt file already exists. move command append index on the file. After running above command. Folder structure looks like this.

.
├── 2_1.txt
├── 2.txt
├── 3.txt
├── 4.txt
├── 5.txt
└── 6.txt

move command also support multiple files.

move *.jpg dirname

move *.png *.jpg dirname

move dirname1 dirname2

move dirname1/* dirname2

Here is link to repo