[SOLVED] Rename multiples files (using rename and regexp)

[scls19fr]

Hello,

I would like to rename several files like
"recto 041.jpg" to "recto1 041.jpg"
"recto 042.jpg" to "recto1 042.jpg"
"recto 043.jpg" to "recto1 042.jpg"

I know the rename command
but I'm not very good about regular expressions...

I 've try something like

rename 's/^recto ???.jpg$/recto1 ???.jpg' *.jpg

but it doesn't work...

What is the good command for this

Kind regards

[Cabhan]

You actually just need a fairly simple regular expression here. All that you want to do is change the "recto" to "recto1", correct? Therefore, the following will work:

rename 's/recto/recto1/' *.jpg

It's that simple .

[scls19fr]

That's right it works fine with my examples
but the problem with your pattern is that

it can also match for name like
recto 041 recto.jpg
that will be converted to
recto1 041 recto1.jpg
instead of
recto1 041 recto.jpg

(In fact, I ask this in order to increase my knowledges about regexp)

[Cabhan]

Okay. So to be more specific, you only want to change "recto" if it's at the very beginning of the filename?

rename 's/^recto/recto1/'

The '^' in the regular expression means "beginning of the string". Therefore, it will only match "recto" if it occurs at the very beginning.

[scls19fr]

Thanks I know "^"
but how could I say

begin with "recto"
follow with a space
and containing 3 numbers
and ".jpg"

I think that it is something like :

^recto\ [0-9]{3}.jpg$

but I don't know what I should say to "rename" to
change this "recto" to "recto1"

[Cabhan]

Alrighty. I didn't realize that you wanted such a specific pattern .

rename 's/^recto (\d{3}.jpg)$/recto1 $1/' *.jpg

This uses the Perl-specific \d (which means [0-9]), and "captures" the group "\d{3}.jpg". In the replacement, it then says "recto1", followed by a space, followed by the first captured group.

Does this all make sense?

[scls19fr]

All right ! it is exactly what I was looking for !

I didn't know the \d

Thanks a lot !