renaming file with date to a different date in shell script

Question

I have files in my home dir as

 member_net.2017-04-20.control
 member_elig_net.2017-04-20.control
 mdcr_contractr_net.2017-04-20.control

I want to rename the files to a different date like in the same dir as

 member_net.2017-04-21.control
 member_elig_net.2017-04-21.control
 mdcr_contractr_net.2017-04-21.control

These files are not of 0 bytes.

Answer 1

A different method is to write a shell script, e.g. in bash:

#!/bin/bash
for f in *.2017-04-20.* ;do
    mv "$f" "${f/2017-04-20/2017-04-21}"
done

It is much simpler than the other solution in this case, but I do recommend that you always keep the other solution in mind.

Answer 2

With the Perl rename command:

rename -n -v 's/2017-04-20/2017-04-21/' *.control

(-n is for no-action, -v for verbose, so you can check what it does before actually running it.)

Answer 3

If this is a one-off, I find the following process to be the best fit between convenience and robustness:

• Use ls with a pattern to select the files that you want and redirect the output to a file (the pattern is just an example, but it is not critical because of the next step):

  ls member_net.*.control > file.list

• Edit file.list in your favorite editor: get rid of any files that you don't want to change (that's why the pattern above is not critical); make sure that it includes all the files that you want to change, adding any missing ones by hand if necessary; change each line from xxx to mv xxx XXX where XXX is just like xxx but with the modified date. This step depends on your editor, but can also be done by using sed on the original file and paste to paste the files together:

  sed 's/2017-04-20/2017-04-21/g' file.list > newfile.list

  paste file.list newfile.list > bothfiles.list

  sed 's/^/mv /' bothfiles.list > commands.list

• You now should have a file commands.list that contains command lines of the form

  mv OLDNAME NEWNAME

• Check it carefully to make sure each command line is correct and complete.

• Then you can execute the commands by piping the file into your shell:

  cat commands.list | bash

What I find attractive is that I can check the file and make sure that it is exactly right and then without touching it at all execute all the commands in it and be sure that it will do the right thing.

This is not as general as writing a shell script, but it is often a useful technique to remember.

Answer 4

Here is the shell script that will help you. You can choose different date. I used current date. Save the shell script as myrename.sh and call it ./myrename.sh dirname. Where dirname is the name of directory in which files will be affected.

#!/bin/bash
for i in `ls $1 | grep -E '[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}'`
do
    x=`echo $i | grep -oE   '[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}'`
    y=`echo $i | sed "s/$x/$(date +%F)/g"`
    mv $1/$i $1/$y 2>/dev/null #incase if old date is same as current date
done