Find and replace filename recursively in a directory

Question

I want to rename all the files in a folder which starts with 123_xxx.txt to xxx.txt.

For example, my directory has:

123_xxx         


        

Answer 1

You can make a little bash script for that. Create a file named recursive_replace_filename with this content :

#!/bin/bash

if test $# -lt 2; then
  echo "usage: `basename $0`  "
fi

for file in `find . -name "*$1*" -type f`; do
  mv "'$file'" "${file/'$1'/'$2'}"
done

Make executable an run:

$ chmod +x recursive_replace_filename
$ ./recursive_replace_filename 123_ ""

Keep note that this script can be dangerous, be sure you know what it's doing and in which folder you are executing it, and with which arguments. In this case, all files in the current folder, recursively, containing 123_ will be renamed.