Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Path: utzoo!lsuc!dave
From: dave@lsuc.uucp (David Sherman)
Subject: Re:  simple question about mv
Date: Sat, 28-Jan-89 20:35:13 EST
Summary: if you like to be sure, edit a script
Message-ID: <1989Jan28.203519.3521@lsuc.uucp>
References: <18230@adm.BRL.MIL>
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto

In article <18230@adm.BRL.MIL> moss@BRL.MIL (VLD/VMB) writes:
|< I know this is simple, but then again, so am I.  What if I want to mv a bunch
|< of files with the same suffix to another suffix. The following does not
|< work
|< 
|<    mv *.flip *.flop
|Well, this should work under a Bourne shell:
|$ for i in *.flip
|> do	mv $i `basename $i .flip` .flop
|> done
|$

Moss's suggestion is the best, once you know what you're
doing.  For people who are a little scared of such magic
before they're fully conversant with sh, it's more comforting
to edit a script which has the mv's explicitly.  Just use good old ed:

$ ls *.flip > junk
$ ed junk
g/.flip/s///
g/.*/s//mv &.flip &.flop/p
w
q
$ sh -x junk

(Personally, I used qed and would say
	$ qed
	<ls *.flip
	,s/\(.*\).flip$/mv & \1.flop
	>sh -x
	Q
but not that many people have qed.)

The point is that you can see what the mv commands look like,
in the editor, before you shovel them at the shell.  It's reassuring.
Note also the sh -x, which lets you watch the commands as they run.

David Sherman
Toronto
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