rename.txt: a text-based renamer

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rename.txt Lets you change the file name using your favorite text editor.

⚠️ This is a pre-release version and has not been thoroughly tested. Please do not use it in a production environment, and be sure to back it up.

Glances

Features

• Use your favorite text editor to batch modify file\folder names;
• Support variables through template engine jinja2;
• Support more variables through add-ons;
• Preview and revise multiple times.
• A useless log file, useful if anything goes wrong.

Usage

Usage: renametxt.py [OPTIONS] [PATH]...

Options:

• --debug: Debug mode, print more messages.
• -d, --dryrun: Dryrun: test or validate code without executing the actual functionality. [default: True]
• -o, --output FILE: The output path of the recover log file. [default:./YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS.rename.json]
• -h, --help: Show this message and exit.

A tip for Windows users: drag the file to the renametxt.bat icon to quickly use the command.

Steps

• Import the files and folders that need to be renamed as arguments. Please note that the order of the files as arguments will be used as the index number (index, starting from 0);
• The program will generate a temporary file, which we call entries file, and open it with the default text editor;
• Edit the entries file and save it; then return to the program and press any key to continue and preview the edited results. Note that the order of the entries will be followed by the sequence number (sequence, starting from 0);
• Check the edited results and choose to re-edit or start renaming.
• The program generates a recovery record and starts renaming.

Entries file

The entries file is a JSON file, which is a list. Each entry contains an index number and file name. It looks like this:

[
  [0, "foo.txt"],
  [1, "bar.jpg"]
]

Tip: Modern editors have multi-line editing functionality.

Tip: Swapping file names can be achieved by modifying the index number.

Variables

Variables can be used through templates when modifying names. Variables are generated based on each item and their metadata.

The following are some default variables:

• self: pathlib.Path, the path of the item.
• index: Integer, the order of the item in the parameters.
• sequence: Integer, the order of the item in the entries file.
• size: Integer, file size, in bytes. For folder is 0.
• atime, mtime, ctime: datetime.datetime, Item access, modification, and creation time.
• naturalsize.size: str, from an example add-on, readable file size, for example, 8.7 KiB.

The use of variables is based on the template engine jinja2, which allows us to do some simple operations and formatting when using variables.

[
  [0, "DSC_{{ mtime.strftime('%Y%m%dT%H%M%S') }}_{{ '%04d' % (index+1) }}.JPG"],
  [1, "DSC_{{ mtime.strftime('%Y%m%dT%H%M%S') }}_{{ '%04d' % (index+1) }}.JPG"]
]

The rendered file name will be:

0000 | DSC_0094.JPG
  -> | DSC_20210315T000649_0001.JPG
0001 | DSC_0087.JPG
  -> | DSC_20220320T103149_0002.JPG

Miscellaneous

Why two-step renaming?

This is a greedy method to avoid collisions when swapping two file names.

c=a; a=b; b=c;

Temporary file names use UUID to avoid collisions.