Rename files not directories

Question

I want to rename all files to lowercase in a directory without renaming subdirectories. I know rename function but it renames files and subdirectories which is not desired. Can you help?

Answer 1

Everything can be done in the perl expression.

Use -f, the regular file test so that only regular files (not directories) will be renamed.

This works:

rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/ if -f;' ./*

(Using ./* instead of * ensures that no file names will be interpreted as options, even if the filename begins with a dash (-).

Answer 2

With zsh:

autoload zmv # best in ~/.zshrc
zmv '*(#q^/)' '${(L)f}'

To rename files of any type except directory. Or:

zmv '*(#q.)' '${(L)f}'

To rename regular files only. To also include hidden files, add the D glob qualifier.

Example (using -n for dry-run):

$ ls -alQF
total 132
drwxr-xr-x   3 stephane stephane   4096 Oct 27 09:11 "."/
drwxr-xr-x 533 stephane stephane 122880 Oct 27 09:11 ".."/
drwxr-xr-x   2 stephane stephane   4096 Oct 27 09:07 "DIR"/
lrwxrwxrwx   1 stephane stephane      3 Oct 27 09:07 "DIR-LINK" -> "DIR"/
prw-r--r--   1 stephane stephane      0 Oct 27 09:07 "FIFO"|
-rw-r--r--   1 stephane stephane      0 Oct 27 09:11 ".HIDDEN FILE"
-rw-r--r--   1 stephane stephane      0 Oct 27 09:07 "HOLIDAYS IN МОСВА\nRED SQUARE.JPG"
lrwxrwxrwx   1 stephane stephane     23 Oct 27 09:08 "MY-RÉSUMÉ.PDF" -> "STÉPHANE'S RÉSUMÉ.PDF"
-rw-r--r--   1 stephane stephane      0 Oct 27 09:07 "--READ-ME--.TXT"
srwxr-xr-x   1 stephane stephane      0 Oct 27 09:09 "SOCKET"=
-rw-r--r--   1 stephane stephane      0 Oct 27 09:07 "STÉPHANE'S RÉSUMÉ.PDF"

$ zmv -n '*(#q^/)' '${(L)f}'
mv -- DIR-LINK dir-link
mv -- FIFO fifo
mv -- HOLIDAYS\ IN\ МОСВА$'\n'RED\ SQUARE.JPG holidays\ in\ мосва$'\n'red\ square.jpg
mv -- MY-RÉSUMÉ.PDF my-résumé.pdf
mv -- --READ-ME--.TXT --read-me--.txt
mv -- SOCKET socket
mv -- STÉPHANE\'S\ RÉSUMÉ.PDF stéphane\'s\ résumé.pdf

$ zmv -n '*(#q.)' '${(L)f}'
mv -- HOLIDAYS\ IN\ МОСВА$'\n'RED\ SQUARE.JPG holidays\ in\ мосва$'\n'red\ square.jpg
mv -- --READ-ME--.TXT --read-me--.txt
mv -- STÉPHANE\'S\ RÉSUMÉ.PDF stéphane\'s\ résumé.pdf

$ zmv -n '*(#qD.)' '${(L)f}'
mv -- .HIDDEN\ FILE .hidden\ file
mv -- HOLIDAYS\ IN\ МОСВА$'\n'RED\ SQUARE.JPG holidays\ in\ мосва$'\n'red\ square.jpg
mv -- --READ-ME--.TXT --read-me--.txt
mv -- STÉPHANE\'S\ RÉSUMÉ.PDF stéphane\'s\ résumé.pdf

See how some of them would break some symbolic links.

Answer 3

You can try

cd directory ; rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/' $(ls -p | grep -v /$) ; cd -

But better use find

cd directory ; find * -prune -type f -exec rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/' {} + ; cd -

Answer 4

Converting to lowercase can be done by typesetting a var to lowercase.

EDIT: Replaced solution with find for a solution with for.

I first tried a solution using find, hoping to find files only with -type f.
This seems to work well:
I used -maxdepth 1 so I did not change anything in other folders (which would be slightly more difficult when a directory-name is in uppercase).
This resulted in

typeset -l smallfile
echo "Find solution looks OK but read more..."
find .-maxdepth 1 -type f| while read file; do
        smallfile="${file}"
        mv "${file}" "${smallfile}"
done

I thought this construction would handle filenames with spaces correctly, what I tested with filenames like "File with Spaces". @Chazelas commented correctly that the solution fails with filenames ending with a space ("Too bad "). Another comment explains how to fix the find-command:find ... -print0 | while IFS= read -rd '' file (your find must support print0, mostly bash and zsh).
Since I already am using a loop, I can just as well use test to see of the current item (given by *) is a regular file.
I found a solution with a simple for-loop and show it here including my testcode.

#!/bin/bash
clear
rm -rf testfiles 2>/dev/null
mkdir -p testfiles/SomeDir #2>/dev/null
mkdir testfiles/"Crazy Dir" 2>/dev/null
touch testfiles/Aha testfiles/"File with Spaces" testfiles/"End with space "
ls -lQ testfiles
echo ===================
typeset -l smallfile
for file in testfiles/* # Stack's formatting thinks /* starts comment, so I close that here: */
do
   if [ -f "${file}" ]; then
        smallfile="${file}"
        # echo mv "${file}" "${smallfile}"
        mv "${file}" "${smallfile}"
   fi
done
echo ===================
ls -lQ  testfiles

For the current dir, remove testdir/ from the for-loop.

Answer 5

This oneliner will solve it:

find path-to-search -depth -type f -exec rename 's/(.*)\/([^\/]*)/$1\/\L$2/' {} \;

Cya!