Rename Files and Directories (Add Prefix)

Question

I would like to add prefix on all folders and directories.

Example:

I have

Hi.jpg
1.txt
folder/
this.file_is.here.png
another_folder.ok/


        

Answer 1

Here is a simple script that you can use. I like using the non-standard module File::chdir to handle managing cd operations, so to use this script as-is you will need to install it (sudo cpan File::chdir).

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use File::Copy;
use File::chdir; # allows cd-ing by use of $CWD, much easier but needs CPAN module

die "Usage: $0 dir prefix" unless (@ARGV >= 2);
my ($dir, $pre) = @ARGV;

opendir(my $dir_handle, $dir) or die "Cannot open directory $dir";
my @files = readdir($dir_handle);
close($dir_handle);

$CWD = $dir; # cd to the directory, needs File::chdir

foreach my $file (@files) {
  next if ($file =~ /^\.+$/); # avoid folders . and ..
  next if ($0 =~ /$file/); # avoid moving this script if it is in the directory

  move($file, $pre . $file) or warn "Cannot rename file $file: $!";
}

Answer 2

with Perl:

perl -e 'rename $_, "PRE_$_" for <*>'

Answer 3

Thanks to Peter van der Heijden, here's one that'll work for filenames with spaces in them:

for f in * ; do mv -- "$f" "PRE_$f" ; done

("--" is needed to succeed with files that begin with dashes, whose names would otherwise be interpreted as switches for the mv command)

Answer 4

On my system, I don't have the rename command. Here is a simple one liner. It finds all the HTML files recursively and adds prefix_ in front of their names:

for f in $(find . -name '*.html'); do mv "$f" "$(dirname "$f")/prefix_$(basename "$f")"; done