zsh: trouble batch-renaming files with zmv

Question

I'm trying to mass rename the files from one extension to another (background: use haml instead of erb in my rails app). I get following output when issuing rename command:

% zmv '**/*.erb' $1.haml    
zmv: error(s) in substitution:
app/views/l/links/index.html.erb and app/views/index/index.html.erb both map to .haml
app/views/l/links/new.html.erb and app/views/l/links/index.html.erb both map to .haml
app/views/l/links/show.html.erb and app/views/l/links/new.html.erb both map to .haml
app/views/l/links/stats.html.erb and app/views/l/links/show.html.erb both map to .haml
app/views/layouts/application.html.erb and app/views/l/links/stats.html.erb both map to .haml
app/views/u/profiles/_form.erb and app/views/layouts/application.html.erb both map to .haml
app/views/u/profiles/edit.html.erb and app/views/u/profiles/_form.erb both map to .haml
app/views/u/profiles/show.html.erb and app/views/u/profiles/edit.html.erb both map to .haml
app/views/u/user_sessions/new.html.erb and app/views/u/profiles/show.html.erb both map to .haml
app/views/u/users/_form.erb and app/views/u/user_sessions/new.html.erb both map to .haml
app/views/u/users/new.html.erb and app/views/u/users/_form.erb both map to .haml
app/views/u/users/show.html.erb and app/views/u/users/new.html.erb both map to .haml

Can anyone point me to the right direction of fixing this?

Answer 1

I think what you really want is something like this:

% zmv '(**/)(*).erb' '$1/$2.haml'
#      ^$1  ^$2

You need to use the parenthesis to create match groups, and you create a match group for the path to the file, and then a match group for the file name. Also, you need to make sure the second argument is also in single-quotes for zmv.

Also, it's a really good idea to test zmv commands with '-n' before you run them (-n will tell you what will be renamed, but not actually rename anything.)

Answer 2

You need to tell zsh what $1 refers to. There are two possibilities:

• Use parentheses around parts of the source pattern that you want to use. For example, in zmv '(*)/(*).erb' '$1/$2.haml', '$1' means what is matched by the first * and $2 means what is matched by the second $2.

  [EDIT (thanks to clee for pointing out that (**/) works)] Parentheses are a little awkward to use with multiple directory levels. If you write (**), the double asterisk loses its special meaning (only a single directory level is matched). And you mostly can't use / inside parentheses, so (**/*) is not a valid pattern. However, the special case (**/) works, so you can write zmv '(**/)(*).erb' '$1$2.haml'.

• Use the -w option, in which case each $N corresponds to the text matched by the Nth wildcard in the source pattern. For example, zmv -w '**/*.erb' '$1/$2.haml' does what you want.

Note that you must always use single quotes around the replacement text (or use \$), otherwise the $s are expanded by the shell before they get to the zmv built-in command.