command line - how to change name of multiple files at the same time

Question

[tiziana]

Hi everyone, in a directory, I have several files named something like:

Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bbmap_stats.txt
Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bs.sh
Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped.sam
Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam
Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam.bai

and i would like to change their names to:

p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bbmap_stats.txt
p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bs.sh
p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped.sam
p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam
p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam.bai

What command line can i use? I have tried the mv command but i cannot find a way to make it work on all the files at the same time. i have found the below instructions but I am not sure i am doing it correctly - how does it work in my case?:

find . -depth -name "[current file name element]" -exec sh -c 'f="{}"; mv -- "$f" "${f%[current file name element]}[new file name element]"' \;

thank you for any suggestion you can give me

Answer 1

[Lian]

ls Ricxxx_*|while read f;do mv $f "p100e_"$f;done. Before using the command, test it first, and then execute it after confirming that it is the desired function

[tiziana]

thank you so much, it worked!!

Answer 2

[barslmn]

TUI file browsers makes batch renaming quite easy. Here some of them:

• nnn
• vifm
• ranger

This is a more complete list.

[tiziana]

thank you, i will have a look. i need to learn about these!

Answer 3

[cfos4698]

I prefer the rename tool. I think you might need to install it with either something like apt (ubuntu), or conda (Linux, Mac, Windows), or homebrew (Mac) etc.

It's simple to use, and has a 'dry run' mode to make sure you know what it's doing. For your case:

cd /path/to/files
# dry run to make sure it's doing what you expect
rename -n "s/Ricxxx_/p100e_Ricxxx_/" *
# actual run to rename the files
rename "s/Ricxxx_/p100e_Ricxxx_/" *

Answer 4

[shenwei356]

Try brename, it's safe and powerful. also read this post: brename: safely batch renaming files/directories via regular expression

$ brename -p ^ -r p100e_
[INFO] main options:
[INFO]   ignore case: false
[INFO]   search pattern: ^
[INFO]      skip filters: ^\.
[INFO]   include filters: .
[INFO]   search paths: ./
[INFO] 
[INFO] checking: [ ok ] 'Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bbmap_stats.txt' -> 'p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bbmap_stats.txt'
[INFO] checking: [ ok ] 'Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bs.sh' -> 'p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bs.sh'
[INFO] checking: [ ok ] 'Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped.sam' -> 'p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped.sam'
[INFO] checking: [ ok ] 'Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam' -> 'p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam'
[INFO] checking: [ ok ] 'Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam.bai' -> 'p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam.bai'
[INFO] 5 path(s) to be renamed
[INFO] renamed: 'Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bbmap_stats.txt' -> 'p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bbmap_stats.txt'
[INFO] renamed: 'Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bs.sh' -> 'p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_bs.sh'
[INFO] renamed: 'Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped.sam' -> 'p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped.sam'
[INFO] renamed: 'Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam' -> 'p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam'
[INFO] renamed: 'Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam.bai' -> 'p100e_Ricxxx_genomic.fna_0.97_mapped_sorted.bam.bai'
[INFO] 5 path(s) renamed