Linux cp with a regexp

Question

I would like to copy some files in a directory, renaming the files but conserving extension. Is this possible with a simple cp, using regex ?

For example :

Answer 1

The shell doesn't understand general regexes; you'll have to outsource to auxiliary programs for that. The classical scripty way to solve your task would be something like

for a in myfile.* ; do
  b=`echo $a | sed 's!^myfile!mydir/newname!'`
  cp $a $b
done

Or have a perl script generate a list of commands that you then source into the shell.