Rename files and directories recursively under ubuntu /bash

Question

I want to rename all files and directories that contain the word \"special\" to \"regular\". It should maintain case sensitivity so \"Special\" won\'t become \"regular\".

Answer 1

@speakr's answer was the clue for me.

If using -execdir to transform both files and directories, you'll also want to remove -type f from the example shown. To spell it out, use:

find /your/target/path/ -execdir rename 's/special/regular/' '{}' \+

Also, consider adding g (global) flag to the regex if you want to replace all occurrences of special with regular in a given filename and not just the first occurrence. For example:

find /your/target/path/ -execdir rename 's/special/regular/g' '{}' \+

will transform special-special.jpg to regular-regular.jpg. Without the global flag, you'll end up with regular-special.jpg.

FYI: GNU Rename is not installed by default on Mac OSX. If you are using the Homebrew package manager, brew install rename will remedy this.