Is there a way to rename all files in a directory?

Question

Ubuntu 16.04

I'm pretty new to linux and have a large number of files an the directory dir. These files have postfix _uploaded.

Is there a way to rename all this files and set them postfix _handled instead of _uploaded?

Answer 1

Ubuntu has rename (prename), from directory dir:

rename -n 's/_uploaded$/_handled/g' -- *_uploaded

• -n is for --dry-run

After getting the potential changes to be made, remove n for actual action:

rename 's/_uploaded$/_handled/g' -- *_uploaded

---

You can also leverage bash parameter expansion, within a for loop over the filenames containing the string _uploaded at the end, from directory dir:

for f in *_uploaded; do new=${f%_uploaded}; echo mv -- "$f" "${new}_handled"; done

This will show you the changes to be made, remove echo for actual action.