Score:-2

Ubuntu

How to rename files in ubuntu, recursively, using grep and rename not find?

Saeed Neamati

10/14/22, 5:15 AM

There are gazillions of questions and answers regarding how to rename files. I'm new to Linux and this myriad of possible ways and different results and different configurations confuses me.

For example:

rename works, but not recursively
grep works recursively, but can't be used to search for file and directory names, instead of file contents
find works, but has a long ugly syntax when you want to search using regular expressions.

And also a lot of answers on ask ubuntu and stackoverflow do not work for me and I don't know how to debug and troubleshoot them.

So, forgive me to ask it one more time.

I'm searching for a clean, memorizable way of:

Renaming files recursively using simple regular expression.

I already do it for the content of files using this syntax:

grep -rl search_regex | xargs sed -i 's/old/new/g'

It works without a lot of frustration. It works out of the box. It just works. I'm searching for a workable solution that is neat and clean. Can you help me please?

639

3 + 4

command-line

bash

muru

10/14/22, 11:52 AM

"Clean", "memorizable", "ugly" all in the eye of the beholder. This question cannot be objectively answered and should be closed as opinion-based

Saeed Neamati

10/14/22, 11:55 AM

@muru, it's already answered.

muru

10/14/22, 12:25 PM

I can see that, and by judging the quality of the accepted answer, what I said remains true.

lys

11/16/22, 10:28 AM

Google Search led me here. The answer below using `globstar` helped me fix the same problem.

Score:4

Ubuntu

pLumo

10/14/22, 5:53 AM

Cannot find anything long and ugly about find:

find . -regex 'search_regex' -exec rename 's/old/new/g' {} +

0 + 10

Saeed Neamati

10/14/22, 7:37 AM

If you see the answer of @wizardpurple, you realize that this syntax is ugly. Why should I specify `-regex` switch? Also why `-exec` when I can use simple pipe? Also what is that `+` at the end? Also with `grep` I can omit those single quotes from around my regex. `find . | grep search | rename 's/old/new/g'`.

pLumo

10/14/22, 7:41 AM

Your arguments are wrong. Why is pipe better than `-exec`? Pipe introduces issues (see my comment on @wizardpurple's answer). Btw: You cannot omit quotes around your regex, this is simply wrong.

pLumo

10/14/22, 7:45 AM

If ugly/complicated means *"I don't know the syntax"*, you might be right. I think pipe and `grep` is more complicated, especially, when you care about the issues that come with it (which are not cared about in his answer).

Saeed Neamati

10/14/22, 7:47 AM

ugly and complicated means that after reading almost 20 questions, I couldn't solve my problem. Clean means after reading one simple answer, my problem is solved. I'm not talking about my understanding as the criteria for simplicity. I'm talking about productivity as the criteria here.

pLumo

10/14/22, 7:52 AM

and how does this `find` command not suffice your needs for "*my problem is solved*"? This is cleaner, faster and has less issues.

Saeed Neamati

10/14/22, 7:58 AM

I told you the issues in the previous comment. Universality matters. When I use `grep` I don't need to wrap it in single quotes. I'm dealing with **ONE** universal syntax. I also know that I'm always working with regular expressions. Also, piping is just the easiest way to combine stuff. Piping is much easier than knowing switches. These are my reasons for productivity.

pLumo

10/14/22, 8:06 AM

Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/126448/discussion-between-plumo-and-saeed-neamati).

vanadium

10/14/22, 8:24 AM

Add quotes so it handles spaces correctly (`"{}"`). If the number of files is very long, then the argument may become too long. Using `\;` at the end instead of `+` will prevent that, but it will become slower: the `rename` command is then executed each time again for each individual file. However, you can handle an unlimited number of files.

pLumo

10/14/22, 8:29 AM

@vanadium --> `find` cares about spaces without quotes around `{}`. Same for max arguments `find -exec ... +` will take care and only send as much arguments as possible.

vanadium

10/14/22, 8:34 AM

@pLumo, so it is quite smart! Good to know!

Score:2

Ubuntu

terdon

10/14/22, 10:01 AM

You can make rename recursive if that's the syntax you prefer:

shopt -s globstar
rename 's/old/new/' **/*

Bash's globstar option makes ** match 0 or more directories or files recursively, so **/* will recurse down the entire directory tree. You just need to write your search pattern as a glob instead of a regular expression. For example, to rename all files whose name contains foo, you would do:

shopt -s globstar
rename 's/old/new/' **/*foo*

0 + 0

Score:0

Ubuntu

wizardpurple

10/14/22, 6:23 AM

You should be able to more or less keep the same format you had with grep and sed, though I think you'll still need a tool like find to supply grep with files to search through.

Edit: updated with information from the comments. thanks @pLumo and @terdon for showing it would fail for files with newline characters in the name.

find /some/directory -print0 | grep -zE "search_regex" | rename -0 's/old/new/g'

0 + 3

pLumo

10/14/22, 7:15 AM

You should use null as delimiter, as newline is a valid character for a filename. Use: `find -print0`, `grep -z` and `rename -0`.

Saeed Neamati

10/14/22, 7:34 AM

Now, this is clean and memorable. I tested it, and it simply worked. No need to change anything. Thank you so much. `find . | grep search | rename 's/old/new/g'`

terdon

10/14/22, 9:58 AM

This will fail on file names that contain newlines @SaeedNeamati and wizardpurple.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: How to rename files in ubuntu, recursively, using grep and rename not find?

TH: วิธีเปลี่ยนชื่อไฟล์ใน Ubuntu แบบเรียกซ้ำโดยใช้ grep และเปลี่ยนชื่อไม่พบ

RO: Cum să redenumiți fișierele în ubuntu, recursiv, folosind grep și rename not find?

RU: Как переименовать файлы в ubuntu рекурсивно, используя grep и переименовать, не найти?

VI: Làm cách nào để đổi tên tệp trong Ubuntu, theo cách đệ quy, sử dụng grep và đổi tên không tìm thấy?

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