[Leaplist] howto change the name of every file in a directory

[Aaron Morrison]

Gary,

It's a simple bash loop.  If you want to see what's going to happen,  
run this form:

cd /path/to/my/dune/mp3s
echo *   # this shows the filenames that the shell will expand
for x in * ; do
echo mv $x \[dune_3\]_$x # adding the echo command will show what  
would be normally be executed
done

(Just add "echo" in front of the mv command).
You'll see on the screen what the command would look like in it's  
expanded form.

There are a couple of things (known as expansions) going on here.  The  
first is known as "globbing" which is a form of pattern matching and  
that is the "*" character in the for statement.  The second is  
variable substitution (the $x )

Here's what happens:
The bash shell expands the "*" glob into all of the filenames that  
match the pattern.  Each expansion (in this case filenames) get  
assigned to a shell variable named "x".  The statements between the do  
and done keywords are then processed.  Each statement will then get  
it's variables expanded (in our code, we are referencing the variable  
"x" by using the $x form) and the expanded line is then executed.
When the "for" statement runs out of arguments, the loop finishes.

simple, eh?

--am


On 09 Oct 2008, at 09:57, Gray Frost wrote:

> Richard,
> I like this method. Short and simple.  Can you break it down for me?
>
> I think it is saying:
> For everything in this directory move the variable named file called  
> $x to a new file name "dune_3 + $x" to give you dune_3$x.  This  
> actually places the "dune_3" in the front of every file.
>
> Is this a form of SED  or AWK?  Or is it just that simple where it  
> just adds a "dune_3" to each file name in the for loop?
>
> On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 12:30 AM, Richard F. Ostrow Jr. <rich at warfaresdl.com 
> > wrote:
> write this into your console:
>
> cd /path/to/my/dune/mp3s
> for x in * ; do
> mv $x \[dune_3\]_$x
> done
>
> and that's it
> <quote who="Mr. Brunkow">
> > to add something to the front of the name?
> >
> > I have the audio MP3 collection of the Dune line of books.  I want  
> to
> > burn a MP3 CD, but dune, dune messiah are in order by alphabetics,  
> but
> > children of dune is not.  i want to add [dune_3]_ to the front of  
> all of
> > the children of dune mp3 files.
> > --
> > Raymond L. Brunkow
> > 5th Degree Black Belt
> > Chief Instructor and Owner
> > Sun State Martial Arts LLC.
> > (407) 786-2525
> > ssma at ssma.us
> > http://www.ssma.us
> >
> > --
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> >
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>
>
> --
> Life without passion is death in disguise
>
>
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>
> Gray
>
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>
>
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