CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashbatch-rename
unique_programmer
unique_programmer

Reputation: 1661

how to change the extension of multiple files using bash script?

I am very new with linux usage maybe this is my first time so i hope some detailed help please. I have more than 500 files in multiple directories on my server (Linux) I want to change their extensions to .xml using bash script I used a lot of codes but none of them work some codes i used :

for file in *.txt
do
mv ${file} ${file/.txt}/.xml
done

or 

for file in *.*
do
mv ${file} ${file/.*}/.xml
done

i do not know even if the second one is valid code or not i tried to change the txt extension beacuse the prompt said no such file '.txt'

I hope some good help for that thank you

Upvotes: 4

Views: 17073

Answers (5)

Édouard Lopez
Édouard Lopez

Reputation: 43391

Explanation

  1. For recursivity you need Bash >=4 and to enable ** (i.e. globstar) ;
  2. First, I use parameter expansion to remove the string .txt, which must be anchored at the end of the filename (%) :
  3. the # anchors the pattern (plain word or glob) to the beginning,
  4. and the % anchors it to the end.
  5. Then I append the new extension .xml
  6. Be extra cautious with filename, you should always quote parameters expansion.

Code

This should do it in Bash (note that I only echothe old/new filename, to actually rename the files, use mv instead of echo) :

shopt -s globstar # enable ** globstar/recursivity
for i in **/*.txt; do
    [[ -d "$i" ]] && continue; # skip directories
    echo "$i" "${i/%.txt}.xml";
done

Upvotes: 8

user2971380
user2971380

Reputation:

I wanted to rename "file.txt" to "file.jpg.txt", used rename easy peezy:

rename 's/.txt$/.jpg.txt/' *.txt

man rename will tell you everything you need to know.

Got to love Linux, there's a tool for everything :-)

Upvotes: 1

siz
siz

Reputation: 134

passing command line argument for dir path

#!/bin/sh
cd $1
names_1=`ls`
for file in ${names_1}
do
mv ${file} ${file}.jpg
done

Upvotes: -2

Amol Manthalkar
Amol Manthalkar

Reputation: 2088

If all the files are in same directory, it can be done using a single command. For example you want to convert all jpg files to png, go to the related directory location and then use command

rename .jpg .png *

Upvotes: 1

Guru
Guru

Reputation: 16974

If its a matter of a one or two sub-directories, you can use the rename command:

rename .txt .xml *.txt

This will rename all the .txt to .xml files in the directory from which the command is executed.

Upvotes: 2

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