The rename command…

Wed Aug 27 22:42:34 UTC 2008

Johnny Rosenberg wrote:
> 2008/8/27 Karl Larsen <k5di at zianet.com>
>
>   
>> Rashkae wrote:
>>     
>>> Johnny Rosenberg wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>>>> When looking around on the web, I've seen a few sites where they mention
>>>>         
>> the
>>     
>>>> "other" rename, but no one seems to use it very much. One person even
>>>> mentioned it as "pretty useless" or something like thatâ€¦
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> It's certainly less powerful than prename.  All it does is simple string
>>> substitution with no regex wildcards.  (However, I should point out,
>>> this 'pretty useless' is exactly what you're doing here)
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>>     This forever repeated Re:The rename Command... is a Summer waste
>> time email. From the very beginning of Linux the Windows users had to
>> learn that rename is not part of the commands. We used "mv" and it has
>> worked for all this time. It still does.
>>     
>
>
> If you refer to me, I'm sorry to waste your summer. I only ask questions
> because I want to learn.
> When first starting to use computers, if we do not count the very first
> years with a Swedish computer (Luxor ABC80) with a Basic interpreter and the
> operating system CP/M, I was actually learning the operating system Primos
> on a Prime 750, I think, at the university in the second half of the
> eighties. The terminals were PT200. After they threw that out (except the
> terminals), they got a Unix machine, and that is what I consider my first
> real computer experience. That was a long time ago and after only a few
> years I started to use Windows, just because wherever I was there was
> Windows. After a while I got my own PC in 1999. OS? Windows 98. Some friends
> also gave me a few pirate CDs with Windows 2000 and XP, yes, even ME. I
> tried those, but after a while I thought I'd better stop doing those pirate
> things, so I went back to Windows 98, which came with my PC. When I bought
> my laptop at the end of 2006, Windows XP was preinstalled, but in summer
> 2007 I installed Ubuntu 7.04 on it, after schrinking the Windows partition
> to about 15 GB. I only wanted XP for two reasons: I paid for it and "just in
> case I will need it some time". So far I started up Windows maybe 5 times or
> so, and it annoyed me every time.
> Anyway, I used mv since about 1988 and I am not sure I ever used rename in
> DOS. Maybe a few times.
> This question was, however, more a question about regular expression and
> piping and things like that. The thing I wanted to do was to rename a lot of
> links, making the annoying "Link to " thing disappear. I searched the link
> using keywords like "rename" etc, not to look for a command with that name,
> only because I thought that word should be mentioned in a text describing
> how to batch rename files. I accidently found that rename command, which I
> had no idea about before that. I read a little about it, but it seemed like
> there was no -r or --recursive option, so I asked here for a better command
> or set of commands for piping or whatever, maybe even a script. I think I
> was quite open minded about the whole thing, even if that doesn't seem clear
> when reading my first post in this thread.
> Now I got a few replies which I am very happy with. I now have a few
> solutions for my task and I even timed them to see which one is the fastest,
> and I even gave my results here, just in case someone would be interested to
> know, even if I doubt it.
> So now I can get my job done and I learned a lot at the same time, which I
> feel is a really great bonus. If I wonder the same thing again, I can just
> search for this thread and refresh my memory.
> Thanks to all who contributed with suggestions, ideas, information and
> opinions.
> So Karl, I think that you won't see much of this subject in the nearest
> future, and I'm sorry for thinking that rename was a Linux standard command.
> Well, actually I didn't, but well... my English is not very good and so on,
> and I guess I couldn't find a better word at that time. Actually I still can
> not... especially not when I also want to keep subjects short.
>   
    Well the title has hung on for a long time. I had no idea English is 
a second language for you. You are doing very well!

    I was just trying to suggest that "mv" is the same function that 
rename should do. Alas there is a rename in the perl language which IS 
confusing!

    So let it die and we can get onto another Summer question.

Karl

>
>   
>>    It is interesting that now you seldom see a message of someone who
>> can't load Hardy and needs help. It appears everyone has it loaded now.
>> Now it's people trying to get Hardy to do something unusual.
>>     
>
> What's unusual about renaming files (links in this case)? If you are not
> happy with a name, you will probably change it, right? In this case I am not
> happy with that Nautilus adds two very unnecessary words to a link when it's
> created, so I have to change them back again… And changing the source code
> of Nautilus seems still a bit too much for a newbie like me.
>
>
>   
>>    For me I am very happy with Hardy as it was made to operate. I don't
>> need to operate Windows because I hate windows! My Wife hates Windows
>> and threatens to buy a MAC.
>>     
>
> I don't know if my wife hates Windows, but I made her switch to Ubuntu. I
> found that she only use Gimp, Firefox and OpenOffice.org anyway, and she
> always complained about how slow Gimp was when processing big images.
> Unfortunately her laptop broke (hardware failure) so we got a desktop
> machine for her, which we bought with Ubuntu 7.10 pre installed. Recently we
> bought an Eee PC with Xandros, so we now have 3 working computers, all with
> GNU/Linux, so we never use Windows at all here. My wife compains now and
> then, but not that we don't have Windows, it's more like when Firefox or
> Opera crash and things like that. That happened in Windows too, I think I'd
> blame the sites she visits and that she has like 30 tabs opened at the same
> time, all the time, in Opera. I always tell her to close some of the
> unnecessary tabs and save them as a session instead, making it easy to bring
> them all up again when she need to, but no, all tabs at the same time is her
> way, as it seems.
> She never did that before she had Opera, maybe because it was just not
> possible with the old Firefox 1.5 or even 2.0, without having all memory
> eaten up, kind of.
>
>
>   
>> I Googled MAC and the new ones appear to be
>> Linux with just a few odd kinks. They make their own BIOS which is
>> pretty terrible :-)
>>     
>
> I have actually thought of buying a Mac, but that was before I installed
> Ubuntu the first time. I just love the Compiz-Fusion too, which is very
> strange, because when I had Windows I always hated all that visual stuff and
> turned it off. Yes, most of the Compiz stuff are turned off here right now
> too, but some of them are actually helping as much as they look good, so I
> keep a few features running.
>
>
>   
>>    I am going to get someone to recommend trying Linux. Then explain it
>> is just like a MAC and see how that flies.
>>
>> Karl
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>>        Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
>>        Linux User
>>        #450462   http://counter.li.org.
>>   PGP 4208 4D6E 595F 22B9 FF1C  ECB6 4A3C 2C54 FE23 53A7
>>
>>
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>>     


-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
   PGP 4208 4D6E 595F 22B9 FF1C  ECB6 4A3C 2C54 FE23 53A7