Using Bash globbing:
for i in *.ext; do
echo mv -nv -- "$i" "${i/firstname.lastname/}"
done
Remove the echo if you're happy with it.
If you need to go into subdirectories:
shopt -s globstar
for i in **/*.ext; do
echo mv -nv -- "$i" "${i/firstname.lastname/}"
done
Remove the echo when you're happy with it.
Using find:
find . -name '*.ext' -exec bash -c 'echo mv -nv -- "$0" "${0/firstname.lastname/}"' {} \;
Remove the echo when you're happy with it.
How about a method that will rename, removing any pattern of the form xxx.yyy (so it will remove the firstname.lastname of the filename, being john.doe or james.brown): for this (using the first method):
shopt -s extglob
for i in *.ext; do
echo mv -nv -- "$i" "${i/+([[:graph:]])\.+([[:graph]])/}"
done
or using the second method:
shopt -s globstar extglob
for i in **/*.ext; do
echo mv -nv -- "$i" "${i/+([[:graph:]])\.+([[:graph:]])/}"
done
or using the find method:
find . -name '*.ext' -exec bash -c 'shopt -s extglob; echo mv -nv -- "$0" "${0/+([[:graph:]])\.+([[:graph:]])/}"' {} \;
If the firstname.lastname pattern is always enclosed between spaces, you could also use the pattern substitution:
"${i/*([[:space:]])+([[:graph:]])\.+([[:graph:]])*([[:space:]])/ }"
so as to only leave one space.
Note. All these methods are 100% safe regarding filenames with spaces and other funny symbols.
Hope this helps!
