Hello readers, in this tutorial, we will learn how to rename a file in the Linux operating system. For this tutorial, we will rename a file either:
- By using the
mvcommand to rename the file - Using
renamecommand
1. Introduction
Renaming files in Linux is not an advanced option, but it’s surely the interesting one. Developers know that Linux has a powerful command-line interface which can be used to write this tutorial.
1.1 Renaming a file with ‘mv’ Command
The simplest way of renaming the files or folders in the Linux operating system is with the mv command. Its basic purpose is to move the files or folders, but it also renames the files as the act of renaming the file is considered by the file-system as moving it from one name to another. This most basic way has the following prototype form:
Syntax 1
mv [options] old_file_name new_file_name
The Syntax 1 will only work if the file is in the current working directory. If not, developers can specify the full path and can use:
Syntax 1(a)
mv [options] /<path_to_file>/old_file_name /<path_to_file>/new_file_name
Do remember:
- The
mvcommand should have a write permission for the folder containing the files - If developers want to confirm the file-name before renaming, they can use the
-ioption in conjugation with themvcommand - If developers want to display all the changes made by the
mvcommand, they can use the-voption in conjugation with themvcommand
1.2 Renaming a file with ‘rename’ Command
The rename command in Linux operating system is used to rename multiple files using the Perl expressions. This command is more advanced than the mv because it supports the regular expressions, renames files to lowercase or uppercase and overwrites files using the Perl. This command also accepts the wildcard entries and has the following prototype form:
Syntax 2
rename 's/old-name/new-name/' file_name1.extn file_name2.extn
The letter s is the important part of the regular expression and it stands for “substitute“. The rename command comes with few optional arguments i.e.
-v: Prints the list of successfully renamed files along with the old names-f: Forcefully overwrites the existing file-n: Determine what changes would take place but not done for real
2. Practical usage
Let’s understand the usage of these commands with the help of the sample snippets.
2.2.1 Start Linux
Start a standalone Linux instance as shown below.
2.2.2 Create a Sample file
To start with this tutorial, we will need to create a dummy file using the vi editor in Linux. Developers can write a dummy content to this file and save it using the :wq! option. The following Linux snippet can be used.
Query 1
$ vi file1.txt
The command gives the following output.
2.2.3 Displaying the Content of Sample file
Once the file is created, developers can use the cat command to ensure that the file was successfully created at the given path. The following Linux snippet can be used.
Query 2
$ cat file1.txt
The command gives the following output.
2.2.4 Renaming the file using the ‘mv’ command
In short, to rename a file in Linux developer can use the following mv command. The following Linux snippet can be used.
Query 3
$ mv /<_path_to_the_file_>/file1.txt /<_path_to_the_file_>/welcome.txt
The command gives the following output.
2.2.5 Renaming the file using the ‘rename’ command
Let’s say developers want to rename multiple files at once. To achieve this they can use the rename command in Linux. Here is the basic Linux snippet that can be used to rename the multiple files.
Query 4
$ rename 's/\.txt$/\.log/' *.txt
As shown in Fig. 5, this command will rename all the .txt files to the .log in the working directory. Developers can verify this by doing the ls -ltr on the Linux terminal.
Make note, while doing the critical or the major tasks developer can verify the changes by running the rename command with -n argument.
3. pyRenamer
pyRenamer is a renaming tool written in Python language to support the renaming of files using a desktop application. This application allows the file name change with a simple mouse click. At this moment, the official website is down, but users can install it from the 3rd part repositories using the following command:
sudo apt-get install pyRenamer
That’s all for this post. Happy Learning!!
4. Conclusion
In this tutorial, developers learned how to rename a file or files in the Linux system using the mv or the rename command. I hope this article served you with whatever developers are looking for. You can download the sample commands in the Downloads section.
5. Download the Source Code
This was a tutorial of renaming the files in Linux.
You can download the full source code of this example here: Linux_file_rename_cmds
