Bash Script - copy with appended text

[iPenguin]

Hello,

I have an objective of copying a file to a new filename having appended text more simply than completely retyping the original name.

For instance to copy a file named: reallyLongFileNameAndHow

To a new file name: reallyLongFileNameAndHow.1

This would take a command like: cp really* reallyLongFileNameAndHow.1
Assuming to select only the file beginning with 'really'.

I can not seem to find a command line only method for accomplishing this, but I did write a script which will produce the result.

The script would be run as such: ca really* .1
The result is a copy of the first file name copied to a second file having the text '.1' appended to the name.

Can anyone think of another method, or improvements to the script, thanks in advance.

#!/bin/sh

# file: ca

# copy with append to simplify adding text to an existing filename
# accept 1 or more file names with exactly one text string to append to each name
# wildcards are okay for the filename 
# for example:  { ca file* .txt } to copy all filenames beginning with file to file*.txt


# perform 2 tests: 
# The 1st to confirm a filename was received 
# The 2nd to confirm that an appendable text string was received
#
for a in "$@"
do

  # test to confirm at least one filename was received
  if [[ -f "$a" && -z "$hasfile" ]]
    then
      hasfile="true"
  fi


  # test to find the arg that is the appendable text string
  if ! [ -f "$a" ]
    then
      txt=$a
  fi

done



# test to confirm both filename and appendable text exists, else exit and print usage
if [[ -z "$hasfile" || -z "$txt" ]]
  then
    echo "The ca command will copy-append text to an existing file name. Wildcards can be used."
    echo "Usage:  { cpa file1 [ file2 file3... ] appended-text }."
    exit;
fi



# now process each filename by appending the text to each filename
# the variable named { a } represents each argument received by the script
for a in "$@"
do

  # process only a file, the appendable text is already in the { txt } variable
  if [ -f "$a" ]
    then

      # create the new filename having appended text
      newFilename="$a$txt"

      # if the new file does not exist then create the new file
      if ! [ -f "$newFilename" ]
        then

          # copy the original file to the new filename having the appended text
          cp $a $newFilename

      fi

  fi

done

# - - - EOF - - -

[burschik]

Try "rename".

[ghostdog74]

for a ready script, you can use the File renamer script in my sig.
eg usage

# touch reallyLongFileNameAndHow
# filerenamer.py -p "How" -e "How.1" -l "really*" #use -l to list only
==>>>>  [ /home/reallyLongFileNameAndHow ]==>[ /home/reallyLongFileNameAndHow.1 ]
# filerenamer.py -p "How" -e "How.1"  "really*" #remove -l to commit
/home/reallyLongFileNameAndHow  is renamed to  /home/reallyLongFileNameAndHow.1
# ls really*
reallyLongFileNameAndHow.1