[Bug 1519495] Re: rename (prename) ignores -n parameter in Xenial Daily

[Dominic Hargreaves]

The version of rename from perl is being removed from the perl package -
it was added by the Debian package and was unmaintained. rename/prename
is now provided by the separate rename package, as you indicated.

The intention is that they are compatible with easy other, so I'm
definitely interested if that isn't the case.

The problem you're describing (which is not specific to the newer
version of rename - it appears with the old rename from the perl package
too at least in my testing on Debian) is that -n is being ignored when
supplied as the last argument. Both manpages specify that options must
come before the expression and file list.

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Title:
  rename (prename) ignores -n parameter in Xenial Daily

Status in rename package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Xenial Daily with updates applied up to 2015-11-24 20:50 GMT

  The perl rename function (aka prename) appears to rename files even
  when the -n parameter is supplied. The -n parameter is supposed to
  make it display possible changes, but not actually rename files (no
  action).

  Unfortunately in the latest Xenial Daily it ignores the -n and goes
  ahead and renames the files.

  This also applies to the long option --no-act

  Example:

  touch oldname
  rename "s/oldname/newname/" * -n
  ls

  What I expected to happen:
  * The command should return "oldname renamed as newname"
  * The listing should show the file "oldname"

  What actually happens::
  * The command returns nothing
  * The listing shows the file "newname"

  Also note that even without the -n parameter - i.e. when I
  deliberately *want* to make the change - the command still does not
  return anything. Normally it would return "oldname renamed as
  newname".

  perl --version shows:
  This is perl 5, version 20, subversion 2 (v5.20.2) built for x86_64-linux-gnu-thread-multi

  rename -V shows:
  /usr/bin/rename using File::Rename version 0.20

  I am wondering whether this is some kind of clash between the rename
  package and the perl package. Xenial seems to be very confused about
  which version of rename it has installed.

  Now try the test case using the exact spelling "prename". The test
  case now works as expected. In previous LTS versions of Ubuntu,
  prename and rename were one and the same program.

  Try the following:
  man rename
  man prename

  Note the differences in parameters (e.g. --nono vs. --no-act) Both of
  these commands claim to be Perl rename.

  In the the previous LTS version of Ubuntu, 14.04, doing man rename and
  man prename gave identical results. My test case above worked as
  expected under 14.04 .

  Also note that despite the 16.04 man pages and 14.04 man pages stating
  that the -n parameter has to be provided *before* the expression and
  files, under 14.04 (and for as long as I can remember, possibly back
  to 6.06) it worked fine providing the -n parameter *after* the other
  arguments.

  (I only test LTS releases. This bug may or may not have been extant in
  14.10,15.04,15.10 )

  Thank-you for your time examining this bug. Having a stable LTS Ubuntu
  is important to me; genuine thanks.

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