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Thread: rename script not working correctly

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
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    rename script not working correctly

    I am trying to create a script that will remove extraneous info from a file name and uppercase only the first letter of each word.

    I would like -

    AB - THIS IS A TEST FILENAME - EXTRA INFO NOT NEEDED.EXT

    to become -

    This.Is.A.Test.Filename.ext

    I have come up with this:

    Code:
    rename 's/TZ - //' *.mp3
    rename 's/ - .*/\.mp3/' *.mp3
    rename 's/([A-Z])/\L$1/g' *.mp3
    rename 's/([^A-Z)]/\U$1/' *.mp3
    rename 's/ ([a-z])/\.\U$1/g' *.mp3
    but it doesn't uppercase the first character. I get -

    this.Is.A.Test.Filename.ext

    What am I doing wrong? I have tried moving the ^ to before the first [ as well as before the first ( but it still doesn't work. Any ideas? Thanks.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
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    8,627
    Distro
    Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

    -n

    Be sure to do your experimenting while using -n so that it goes as a dry run and does not change anything.

    You'll probably need to do several substitutions. Maybe something like this?

    Code:
    rename -n 's/^[^-]* - //; s/ - .*\././; s/ /./g; s/\b(\w+)\b/\u\L$1/g; s/\.(\w+)$/.\L$1/' *.mp3

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
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    716

    Re: rename script not working correctly

    Wow... I didn't know you could combine all of those steps into one. Good to know.

    I am trying to decode that line (which worked great, by the way). Since it is so different from mine, could you help me out and explain each step? I really am trying to learn how to do this one my own. Thanks

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
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    8,627
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    perl regex

    Sure. It is most clear when taken line by line. It's perl regular expression, the de-facto standard for the net.

    There's a lot online about perl regular expressions. The perl documentation has Perl regular expressions quick start or you can find a copy of "The Camel Book" Perl regex and "perl-compatible" regex are really powerful and common and worth knowing.

    Code:
    s/^[^-]* - //; # delete the beginning up to and including ' - '
    s/ - .*\././;  # delete from the next ' - ' everything up to but not the period (putting the period back)
    s/ /./g;       # swap all spaces for periods in the whole string
    s/\b(\w+)\b/\u\L$1/g; # find each word in the whole string and convert it to title case
    s/\.(\w+)$/.\L$1/     # find the word after the last period and convert it wholly to lower case
    Here are the pieces:

    • ^ at the beginning of a pattern means the beginning itself
    • $ at the end of a pattern means the end itself
    • . means any character .* means zero or more of any character, .+ means one or more of any character
    • \. means an actual period
    • \w means any character which can be a word (depends on locale, but includes a-z, 0-9)
    • \b means a word boundary, can be a character or zero length
    • \u means force next character to titlecase
    • \L means force all of the next characters to lowercase
    • \u\L together means put the next characters into lowercase, with the first being upper case
    • g at the end of the s/// means apply the regex to the whole string not just the first occurance of the pattern
    • () groups the result of a search and saves it for later, the first result is $1, the second $2, and so on
    • [] means any single one of the characters inside [ and ]
    • [^] means any single one character except the one(s) inside

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
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    Poland
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    4,499
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    Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

    Re: rename script not working correctly

    just for kicks, in pure bash it would go like this

    Code:
    for f in *.[mM][pP]3
    do
        name=${f#*- }      # trim leftside *-
        name=${name% -*}   # trim rightside -*
        name=${name// /.}  # replace spaces with .
        name=${name,,}     # lowercase everything
        name=${name~}      # flip case of first chars
        ext=${f##*.}       # trim leftside greedy *.
        ext=${ext,,}       # lowercase everything
        mv -- "$f" "$name.$ext"
    done
    docs about parameter expansion
    http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/man...Expansion.html

    to prove that these spells work
    Code:
    $ f='AB - THIS IS A TEST FILENAME - EXTRA INFO NOT NEEDED.EXT'
    $ name=${f#*- }; name=${name% -*}; name=${name// /.}; name=${name,,}; name=${name~}
    $ ext=${f##*.}; ext=${ext,,}
    $ echo $name.$ext
    This.Is.A.Test.Filename.ext
    Last edited by Vaphell; February 23rd, 2014 at 03:56 PM.
    if your question is answered, mark the thread as [SOLVED]. Thx.
    To post code or command output, use [code] tags.
    Check your bash script here // BashFAQ // BashPitfalls

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
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    716

    Re: perl regex

    Awesome. Thank you very much. That's a little different from th regular expression that I've seen in the past. I'll have to study that a little more


    @Vapell - Thank you, too... I think I need to learn one thing at a time Maybe next week I'll delve into the bash format

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
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    716

    Re: rename script not working correctly

    I'm an idiot... after studying my code, I figured out the problem. Line four should have read [a-z] instead of [A-Z]. D'oh! So in case anyone else needs this:

    Code:
    rename 's/AB - //' *.mp3
    rename 's/ - .*/\.mp3/' *.mp3
    rename 's/([A-Z])/\L$1/g' *.mp3
    rename 's/([a-z)]/\U$1/' *.mp3
    rename 's/ ([a-z])/\.\U$1/g' *.mp3
    -or- (thanks to Lars for the ";" trick )
    Code:
    rename 's/AB - //; s/ - .*/\.mp3/; s/([A-Z])/\L$1/g; s/([a-z)]/\U$1/; s/ ([a-z])/\.\U$1/g' *.mp3

    @Lars -> Your code worked perfectly, but I just had to figure mine out for my own knowledge. Thanks.
    Last edited by rebeltaz; February 27th, 2014 at 09:14 AM.

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