rename (1) - Linux Manuals

rename: rename files

NAME

rename - rename files

SYNOPSIS

rename [options] expression replacement file...

DESCRIPTION

rename will rename the specified files by replacing the first occurrence of expression in their name by replacement.

OPTIONS

-v, --verbose

Give visual feedback which files where renamed, if any.

-V, --version

Display version information and exit.

-s, --symlink

Peform rename on symlink target

-h, --help

Display help text and exit.

EXAMPLES

Given the files foo1, ..., foo9, foo10, ..., foo278, the commands

rename foo foo0 foo?
rename foo foo0 foo??

will turn them into foo001, ..., foo009, foo010, ..., foo278. And

rename .htm .html *.htm

will fix the extension of your html files.

WARNING

The renaming has no safeguards. If the user has permission to rewrite file names, the command will perform the action without any questions. For example, the result can be quite drastic when the command is run as root in the /lib directory. Always make a backup before running the command, unless you truly know what you are doing.

AVAILABILITY

The rename command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.