how to batch rename files in terminal - move text in file name from end of file name to front

Question

I have recently started using wget to download files.

I'm using ubuntu 16 mate to manipulate my files.

I create custom urls to include specific information that I want saved to the downloaded file name as follow:

  http://website.com/file.txt?title_Three_little_pigs_user_spinach_

If I download the url using Firefox and Downthemall using rename masks to add query strings to the file name I can manage to get:

  Three_little_pigs_user_spinach_file.txt

If I download the same urls using wget (which does not appear to support rename masking) I end up getting:

  file.txt@title_Three_little_pigs_user_spinach_

I there a way to batch rename files as follows:

Before:

  file.txt@title_Three_little_pigs_user_spinach_

After:

  title_Three_little_pigs_user_spinach_file.txt

I want to move the text after the @ to the beginning and then remove the @.

I have lots of files I want to rename in terminal in ubuntu - if I could add it to a bash script it would be awsome.

I run ubuntu and windows and I have not found a windows program that will rename files in this way.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Ubuntu 16.04 should come with both the original perl-supplied prename and its newer replacement rename, either of which should work with a standard sed-like substitution expression

prename -n 's/(.*)@(.*)/$2$1/' *@*

or

rename -n 's/(.*)@(.*)/$2$1/' *@*

You could also install mmv from the repository, and use

mmv -n "*@*" "#2#1"

In all cases the -n is a no-operation flag for testing - remove it once you are absolutely sure that the it's going to do what you want