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Rename or remove files in a directory using an editor

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dir-edit

Rename or remove files in a directory using an editor.

Motivation

If you want to rename files in a directory, things get really cumbersome if:

  • the name modifications are not easily automatable (e.g. spelling mistakes)
  • file names contain spaces / special characters (when using a shell)
  • you have to rename a lot of files (when using a GUI)
  • you would need to use temporary files (e.g. mv a tmp ; mv b a ; mv tmp b)
  • etc.

This script launches a used-defined text editor with a temporary file, where every line is a filename in the directory. This enables the user to rename (edit a line) or delete (blank line) entries. After saving and exiting the editor, the script checks the file for consistency, detects rename loops and finally performs the changes.

News

3.0.0 2021-03-29 Require Python 3.6 (no new features, just usage of "try ... from")
2.1.0 2017-05-01 Support renaming of intermediate dirs in recursive mode, drop --safe mode, small bugfixes
2.0.0 2017-03-22 Bugfixes, Python 3 support, -o and -L option, extensive test suite
1.1 2010-11-21 Bugfixes
1.0 2010-05-06 First working version

Examples

Rename non-hidden files in the current directory:

dir_edit

Rename mp3 files in the music directory using gedit:

dir_edit -e gedit ~/Music ~/Music/*.mp3

Review changes before executing them:

dir_edit -vd -L log.txt
view log.txt
sh -e log.txt

Rename pictures with maximum directory depth 2:

find pics -maxdepth 2 -type f -iregex ".*\.\(jpg\|png\)" > file_list
dir_edit -i file_list

Usage

dir_edit [OPTION]... [DIR] [FILES]...

  DIR        directory to edit (default: current directory)
  FILES      limit to these filenames (default: all non-hidden in directory)

Some options:

  -e CMD, --editor=CMD       use CMD to edit dirfile (default: $EDITOR or vi)
  -d, --dry-run              don't perform any file system modifications
  -v, --verbose              output filesystem modifications to stdout
  -L FILE, --logfile FILE    path to logfile for verbose mode (default: stdout)
  -i FILE, --input FILE      FILE containing paths to be edited

Copyright

Copyright (C) 2010-2021 Johannes Weißl
License GPLv3+:
GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

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Rename or remove files in a directory using an editor

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