Move and rename files based on subfolders

Question

I would appreciate any help, relatively new here

I have the following directory structure

Main_dir
|-Barcode_subdirname_01\(many further subfolders)\filename.pdf
|-Barcode_subdirname_02\(many further subfolders)\filename.csv

• There are 1000s of files within many subfolders
• The first level sub directories have the barcode associated to all files within. eg 123456_dirname
• I want to copy all files within all subfoders to the main_dir and rename the files subdirname_barcode_filename.extension (based only on the first subdirectory name and barcode)

I've been attempting to write a bash script to do this from the main_dir but have hit the limit of my coding ability (i'm open to any other way that'll work).

• firstly identifying the first level sub folders

  find -maxdepth 1 -type d |

• then cut out the first 2 parts deliminated by the underscores

  cut -d\_ -f1 > barcode

• then find the files within the subfolders, rename and move

  find -type f -print0 | while IFS= read -r filenames; do newname="${barcode/sudirname/filename\/}" mv "filename" "main_dir"/"newname" done

  I can't get it to work and may be headed in the wrong direction.

Answer 1

You can use rename with sed like substitute conventions, for example

$ rename 's~([^_]+)_([^_]+)_.*/([^/.]+\..*)~$1_$2_$3~' barcode_subdir_01/a/b/c/file2.csv

will rename file to

barcode_subdir_file2.csv

I used ~ instead of the more common / separator to make it more clear.

You can test the script with -n option to show the renamed files without actually doing the action.