Re: rename command

[Sami Kerola]

On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 11:48, Erik Auerswald
<address@hidden> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 09:57:02AM +0100, Pádraig Brady wrote:
>> On 28/06/11 08:21, Erik Auerswald wrote:
>> > On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 05:26:48PM +0100, Pádraig Brady wrote:
>> >> On 27/06/11 10:11, Sami Kerola wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> I have been lately making some util-linux patches and while doing
>> >>> so I found rename command.
>> >>> [...]
>> >>
>> >> I've never used rename actually, instead using find | sed | sh
>> >> in the rare times I've had to do something like this.
>> >> I find that easier and more general, for lower casing etc.
>> >> That is a process per file though.
>> >
>> > FWIW, I usually use the rename perl script as distributed by Debian with
>> > the perl package (because it is available, convenient and works well).
>>
>> Good point.
>>
>> # dpkg -S $(readlink -f $(which rename))
>> perl: /usr/bin/prename
>>
>> That one supports -f for "force" too,
>> but -n means "test" rather than "noclobber".
>>
>> Of course the replacement syntax is different
>> and is more like my find | sed | sh pattern above,
>> except it's not a process per file.
>> So I'd prefer this one TBH.
>>
>> So portable scripts should use `prename` I guess
>> for the perl syntax, and `rename` for the util-linux one.
>
> I don't think this is really portable, the 'p' prefix was added to fix
> Debian bug #304705. In fact I don't know if, where and under which name
> this rename Perl script can be found in other distris or even the BSDs.

BSD has a bit more advanced rename.

http://rename.berlios.de/

I guess that is not much in use because the only version of on line
manual page I found was in Google cache.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:y1_wk6tYjCwJ:https://1command.com/man/index.cgi

The syntax seems to be a little bit different, which is something to
mind if a coreutils version aims to be general replacement of all of
them. So far the test option is only one which seems to vary.

-- 
   Sami Kerola
   http://www.iki.fi/kerolasa/