batch rename help

**ronacc** · February 2nd, 2013

I have a directory with a bunch of text files with only the file names ( no extension ) . I need to add a .txt extension to every file . what is the best way to do this ?

**nothingspecial** · February 2nd, 2013

Assuming all the files in the directory have no extension and all the files want one

In the directory that contains the files

Code:

for f in *; do mv "$f" "$f".txt; done

If you mean only some of the files then you will need the test ( [[ ) command first.

**ronacc** · February 2nd, 2013

that did it . Thank You

**sisco311** · February 2nd, 2013

EDIT: D'oh! nothingspecial beat me to it!

If you are looking for a GUI tool, then check out:

thunar (file manager)
gprename
gnome-commander (file manager)
purrr
pyrenamer
gwenrename
krename

In the CLI there are many ways. On Debian and Ubuntu I'd probably use the Perl based rename command.

Code:

cd path/to/dir/where/the/files/are
prename -n 's/(.*)/$1.txt/' ./*

-n tells to prename to only print the file names which would have been renamed.

But you can use the rename command from the util-linux package, mmv or you can write your own little script.