Quickest way to rename files, without retyping directory path

Question

I know how to rename files in Unix:

$ mv ~/folder/subfolder/file.txt ~/folder/subfolder/file.sh

     ^-------this part------^    ^------this part-------^

It takes too long time to repeat ~/folder/subfolder/file twice.

Is there a quicker way?

score 111 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

111

If your shell supported Brace Expansion (works with csh, tcsh, ksh, zsh, bash, mksh, lksh, pdksh, yash with brace-expand enabled by calling yash --brace-expand or set in interative shell with set -o brace-expand, or fish):

mv ~/folder/subfolder/file.{txt,sh}

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37

Community

1

answered May 27 '14 at 16:12

cuonglm

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simple is the best! – Braiam May 27 '14 at 18:05
2

awesome use of expansion in shell brilliant! – harish.venkat May 27 '14 at 18:10
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It _is_ awesome, but really cryptic. It works but at the first glance I would think it does something different: moves two file somewhere. I don't think this is a great idea, especially since there is a much better solution using `rename`. – yo' May 28 '14 at 21:07
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@tohecz: Why is it cryptic? It's a feature of shell and every one can know it by reading shell man page. And I don't think `rename` is a better solution because `rename` never ask you to override the existing file or not. – cuonglm May 29 '14 at 02:32
1

@Gnouc you're the man. – beginer Sep 01 '14 at 12:26
This worked in Ubuntu 18 without needing to enable any extensions. – Shital Shah Jan 26 '20 at 01:43
using this, how would I rename `~/fruits/bananas_and_mangos` into `~/fruits/pineapples_and_mangos` ? – Salomanuel Mar 17 '22 at 15:16

score 23 · Answer 2 · edited May 27 '14 at 22:21

23

You can also use rename (part of the util-linux package).

rename .txt .sh ~/folder/subfolder/file.txt

See the rename man page for more details.

edited May 27 '14 at 22:21

ctrl-alt-delor

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answered May 27 '14 at 16:24

jofel

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+1 This is the clear way how to do it, much better than relying on shells `{a,b}` functionality. – yo' May 28 '14 at 21:02
5

In some Linux distros (such as Ubuntu), `rename` is an entirely different, perl-based program. There, you would use `rename 's/txt$/sh/' ~/folder/subfolder/file.txt`. – evilsoup Oct 04 '14 at 09:34
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On Debian (and Ubuntu), there is also `mmv`. – ctrl-alt-delor Apr 13 '18 at 13:13
@ctrl-alt-delor `mmv` doesn't work in Ubuntu. Even after installing using sudo apt, this command just hangs and doesn't do anything. – Shital Shah Jan 26 '20 at 01:40
@ShitalShah how did you call it? What arguments? – ctrl-alt-delor Jan 26 '20 at 07:39
@ctrl-alt-delor Deinstall mtools. – jofel Jan 27 '20 at 07:10
@jofel use your words. – ctrl-alt-delor Jan 27 '20 at 17:28

score 10 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 13 '18 at 13:14

10

All the above are good. This would also work :

( cd ~/folder/subfolder && mv file.txt file.sh )

edited Apr 13 '18 at 13:14

ctrl-alt-delor

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answered May 27 '14 at 16:31

Bjorn

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No. It doesn't work for me! – Hamed Kamrava May 27 '14 at 16:35
It will work if you remove the `sudo` part. – Cthulhu May 27 '14 at 17:03
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@Cthulhu Yes your right. But why doesn't work with `sudo`? – Hamed Kamrava May 27 '14 at 17:29
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@HamedKamrava Probably because with `sudo` it interprets `~` as the root's home directory. – Cthulhu May 28 '14 at 04:41
You can `sudo` the `mv`, but not `cd`. See why cd is a shell built in. And you can not `sudo` the `(` – ctrl-alt-delor Apr 13 '18 at 13:17
shame that the autocomplete would not work for the name of the file – Salomanuel Mar 17 '22 at 15:18

terdon · Answer 4 · 2014-10-04T09:20:59.623

8

No. You need to give the full path to the file in order to rename it. The only alternative is to move into the target folder before running the mv:

cd ~/folder/subfolder/
mv file.txt file.sh

Alternatively, you could write a little function that renames the file in the target directory. For example, add these lines to your shell initialization file (~/.bashrc if you are using bash):

lmv(){
    _path=$(dirname -- "$1")
    _target="${_path%/}/$2"
    mv -- "$1" "$_target"
}

Then, open a new terminal or just run source ~/.bashrc to re-read the init file and you can do:

lmv ~/folder/subfolder/file.txt file.sh

edited Oct 04 '14 at 09:20

answered May 27 '14 at 16:12

terdon

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+1 for `lmv()` function. I didn't know that :) – Hamed Kamrava May 27 '14 at 16:20
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@HamedKamrava nobody knew it. I just wrote it, it's not anything standard. – terdon May 27 '14 at 16:22
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I know. I mean I didn't know I can write my own function! – Hamed Kamrava May 27 '14 at 16:23

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 13 '18 at 12:58

Just to expand the usefulness of cuonglm's answer (NOT to take any credit as I love his solution) and his answer is a correct one.

The use case is that we often want to mv a file in a remote location (the real issue), e.g. /folder/subfolder/configFile.dat TO configFile.dat.orig

This form of the command adds a file extension (not replacing the original extension)

mv ~/folder/subfolder/file.txt{,.orig}

Explained: "{,.orig}" means replace (nothing) on the end of the file name with (something) ".orig"

OR to remove a file extension (reverse the rename)

mv ~/folder/subfolder/file.txt{.orig,}

Note: Still on topic for "Quickest way to rename files without retyping the dir path"

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered May 27 '14 at 16:13

1

Yes. If you use bash, you do sudo pushd ~/folder/subfolder/ && sudo mv ./file.txt ./file.sh && popd.

Which is actually bigger and may fail if you lost access permissions to the original directory when you did the popd.

answered May 27 '14 at 16:13

41754

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What's the point of `pushd` and `popd` here? How is this better than `cd ~/folder/subfolder/ && sudo mv file.txt file.sh`? – terdon May 27 '14 at 16:20
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The point is, that you are after the command back in the folder you started, not in any subfolder. An alternative to `pushd` `popd` is to use `cd` and go back with `cd -`. – jofel May 27 '14 at 16:27
The questioner seemed to state an intention not to change the working directory, and `popd` is better than `cd ../../`, when available. – 41754 May 27 '14 at 16:32
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Use `(cd /path/to/there && mv x y)` then (with a subshell) – Stéphane Chazelas May 27 '14 at 16:39
You really should not put `sudo` before `pushd`. So the full command should be `pushd ...dir && sudo mv old new && popd`. As an alternative, one could do `(cd ...dir; sudo mv old new)` because running in subshell will take care of directory changes automatically. – Mikko Rantalainen Mar 12 '19 at 11:38

Quickest way to rename files, without retyping directory path

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