space character seperates string in container

**per_plex** · August 27th, 2011

Hi everyone,

I try to use the terminal for multiple renaming. For this I got a script from someone and it goes like this:

for F in $(find *.pdf); do mv ${F} $(echo ${F} | sed s/pdf/txt/); done

it searches for all pdf files and changes them to txt files.
However, it does not work for files containing a space character. Here the container F (is this called a container btw.??) separates the input from the find command into single words. The foldername "hello world" would be separated in "hello" and "world".
My question is: how can this be inhibit?

Thanks in advance
Jakob

**The Cog** · August 27th, 2011

I think putting this command in front should work:

Code:

export IFS=$'\n'

It says the inter-field-separator is newline, rather than the normal newline-or-tab-or-space.

**nothingspecial** · August 27th, 2011

Also, always quote your variables.

http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfa...file_.24target

**sisco311** · August 27th, 2011

Check out the first (probably the most common pitfall) from the link posted by nothingspecial.

Oh, and http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/020

Also, instead of echo text | sed whatever you can use parameter expansion.

Code:

while IFS= read -d '' file
do
    mv -b -- "$file" "${file%.pdf}.txt"
done < <(find ./ \*.pdf -print0)

**per_plex** · August 29th, 2011

hey, thanks a lot for your replies, I made it with your help

however, its still a bit fishing in the dark with those variables. Sometimes it has to be in " ", sometimes the spaces have to be preceded with a /, sometimes not. And some more stuff which confuses me - I think I need to follow an introduction to shell programming. I found this site http://www.freeos.com/guides/lsst/ or does anyone have a tip?

greets
Jakob