How to use the rename command to rename files in Linux?

In the previous article [How to use the mv command to rename files in Linux], we introduced the method of using the mv command to rename files. In this article, we will continue to introduce another way to rename files. How to name files: Use the rename command to rename files. I hope it will be helpful to everyone.

# The rename command is used to rename multiple files. This command is more advanced than mv as it requires some basic knowledge of regular expressions. It has two versions: C language version and perl version; different versions have different syntax.

The following will introduce how to use the perl version of the rename command. If you don't have the rename command installed for that version, you can easily install it using your distribution's package manager.

● Install the rename command on Ubuntu and Debian

sudo apt install rename

● Install the rename command on CentOS and Fedora

sudo yum install prename

● Install the rename command on Arch Linux

yay perl-rename ## or yaourt -S perl-rename

Basic syntax of the rename command:

rename [OPTIONS] perlexpr files

The rename command will rename all files according to the specified perlexpr regular expression.

Example:

Change all files with the extension .html to .php

rename 's/.html/.php/' *.html

You can use the -n parameter to print the files that need to be renamed files without having to rename them.

rename -n 's/.html/.php/' *.html

The output looks like this:

rename(file-90.html, file-90.php)
rename(file-91.html, file-91.php)
rename(file-92.html, file-92.php)
rename(file-93.html, file-93.php)
rename(file-94.html, file-94.php)

By default, the rename command does not overwrite existing files; passing the -f parameter allows overwriting of existing files.

rename -f 's/.html/.php/' *.html

Common examples of using the rename command

Replace spaces in file names with underscores

rename 'y/ /_/' *

Convert file names Convert the file name to uppercase for lowercase

rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/' *

rename 'y/a-z/A-Z/' *

Related video tutorial recommendations: "PHP Tutorial"

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