Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!convex!usenet
From: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: Shell wildcard expansion
Message-ID: <1991Jun24.195425.26387@convex.com>
Date: 24 Jun 91 19:54:25 GMT
References: <1991Jun24.144854.8879@ap542.uucp> <13912@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <ARS.91Jun24150502@hobbes.cs.brown.edu>
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Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
Lines: 56
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From the keyboard of ars@cs.brown.edu (Adam Stauffer):
:
:}I'm looking for a wildcard expansion mechanism, where for example I could
:}do mv *.c *.o.
:}E.g. an expansion where I only get the * part. 
:
:There is a really nifty program called "mmv" that allows for all sorts
:of fun expansions to occur.  It is available at uunet.uu.net in vol 21
:of the comp.sources.unix archive...

Maybe you didn't look much at rename script that was posted.  It 
allows things like:

# strip .bak from files
    rename 's/\.bak$//' *.bak

# call all fortran files nasty
    rename 's/\.f$/.EVIL/' *.f

# make uppercase files be lowercase
    rename 'tr/A-Z/a-z/' *

# make lowercase unless the filename starts with "Make"
    rename 'tr/A-Z/a-z/ unless /^Make/' *

# change all files in entire system of form foo~ into .#foo
    find / -name '*~' -print | rename 's/(.*)~/.#$1/' 

# change foo to bar if the user types yes after seeing the name
    rename 'print "$_: "; s/foo/bar/ if <STDIN> =~ /^y/i'  *

# make xxx44 into 02C-xxx  
    rename '/^(\D*)(\d+)$/ && $_ = sprintf("%03X-%s", $2, $1)' *


The possibilities are literaly limitless.  Ok, the last two are admittedly
a trifle baroque, but you get the idea.  The version posted was a bit
elaborate (reads files from stdin, groks -i option, error checking, etc.)

The real guts are just:

	#!/usr/bin/perl
        $op = shift;
        for (@ARGV) {
            $was = $_;
            eval $op;
            die $@ if $@;
            rename($was,$_) unless $was eq $_;
        }

So if you ever misplace it, you can always rewrite it.

--tom
--
Tom Christiansen		tchrist@convex.com	convex!tchrist
		"So much mail, so little time."