Rename batch rename files under Linux and macOS

Reference: File renaming under Linux, encountering the problem of "bareword not allowed"

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Two ways to rename in Linux

There are two commands for renaming files under Linux: mv, rename.

mvOrder

mvThe command
mv /dir/file1 /dir2/file1
has two parameters, the first is the source file, and the second is the destination. If the second parameter file name is different, it will be renamed. When the two parameters do not include a directory, only the file name, that's a rename. This is a rename of a single file.

renameOrder

renameThe command
rename arg1 arg2 arg3
renameis the real batch rename command. And it has 3 parameters, not 2.
arg1: Old string
arg2: New string
arg3: To match the files to be renamed, you can use 3 wildcards, *, ?, [char].

*Indicates any number of characters,
?represents a single character,
[char]matches chara single customized exact character, and can fill in any characters.
For example, foo[a]*it means that only file names starting with will be matched fooa. If a file is foobcc.txt, it will not be matched.

Example

For example, /homethere are two files below abbcc.txt, addbb.txt,a.txt

I want to a replace with xxx, the command is like this:rename "a" "xxx" *.txt

Then it will first match which files need to be modified. Here, all .txtfiles with suffix will be matched.

If it is changed rename "a" "xxx" ?.txtto , only one file will be matched, that is . Then replace the characters a.txtin the matched file with . Note that when testing , only the first one will be replaced , which remains to be understood.axxxabab.txta

It is worth noting that this command is different in different Linux versions, and the Debian series operating systems have different usage .

renameUsage of Debian series operating systems

For Debian series operating systems, such as Ubuntu, it is incorrect to use this command in this way, and an error will be reported, such as

Bareword “a” not allowed while “strict subs” in use at (eval 1) line 1.

After searching, I found this statement:

On Debian-based distros it takes a perl expression and a list of files. you need to would need to use:
rename ‘s/foo/foox/’ *

Here is an perlexpression. To be easy to understand, it means that the first two parameters are combined into 1, so only 2 parameters are needed instead of the 3 parameter form mentioned above.

Example

If my current file name is abbcc.txt, ac.txt,addbb.txt

So when executing the renaming example above under Ubuntu, the command is as follows:
rename 's/a/xxx/' *.txt
the result is
xxxbbcc.txt, xxxc.txt,xxxddbb.txt

Still these three files abbcc.txt, ac.txt, addbb.txt
if you want to delete letters a, then the command is rename 's/a//' *.txt(that is, just delete the above command xxx),
and the result is
bbcc.txt, c.txt,ddbb.txt

in macOSrename

First, brew install renameuse the installation renamecommand, and the rest of the usage is the same as in Ubuntu.