How to rename files in batches:

Basic Syntax:

rename [options] expression files

• Options: Various options can be used to modify the behavior of the rename command.
• Expression: The Perl regular expression that defines how the filenames should be changed.
• Files: The list of files or a pattern that matches the files you want to rename.

Examples:

1. Replace Text in Filenames:

To replace a specific text pattern in filenames, you can use the following syntax:

rename 's/old_text/new_text/' files

Replace old_text with the text you want to replace and new_text with the replacement text. For example, to replace “file” with “document” in all .txt files:

rename 's/file/document/' *.txt

2. Add a Prefix or Suffix:

To add a prefix or suffix to filenames, you can use expressions like:

# Add a prefix
rename 's/^/prefix_/' files

# Add a suffix
rename 's/$/_suffix/' files

 

3. Change Prefix according to pattern:

Rename files that match a pattern:

rename 's/^/file_/' file*.txt

If you have files named file.txt, file2.txt, file3.txt, this command will rename them to file_file.txt, file_file2.txt, file_file3.txt, respectively, by adding the prefix “file_” to their names.

Important Points:

• Always double-check your expressions before executing the rename command to avoid unintended changes.
• Be careful with regular expressions, especially if you’re not familiar with them. Test with a small set of files first.
• Different Linux distributions may use different versions of the rename command, and the syntax can vary. Make sure to check the specific manual for your system (man rename).

Remember that rename is a powerful tool, and it’s recommended to test your renaming expressions on a small set of files before applying them to a large number of files.

---

NAME
rename, renameat, renameat2 – change the name or location of a file

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION
rename() renames a file, moving it between directories if required. Any other hard links to the file (as created using link(2)) are unaffected. Open file descriptors for oldpath are also unaffected.

Various restrictions determine whether or not the rename operation succeeds: see ERRORS below.

If newpath already exists, it will be atomically replaced, so that there is no point at which another process attempting to access newpath will find it missing. However, there will probably be a window in which both oldpath and newpath refer to the file being renamed.

If oldpath and newpath are existing hard links referring to the same file, then rename() does nothing, and returns a success status.

If newpath exists but the operation fails for some reason, rename() guarantees to leave an instance of newpath in place.

oldpath can specify a directory. In this case, newpath must either not exist, or it must specify an empty directory.

If oldpath refers to a symbolic link, the link is renamed; if newpath refers to a symbolic link, the link will be overwritten.

renameat()
The renameat() system call operates in exactly the same way as rename(), except for the differences described here.

If the pathname given in oldpath is relative, then it is interpreted relative to the directory referred to by the file descriptor olddirfd (rather than relative to the current working directory of the calling process, as is done by rename() for a relative pathname).

If oldpath is relative and olddirfd is the special value AT_FDCWD, then oldpath is interpreted relative to the current working directory of the calling process (like rename()).

If oldpath is absolute, then olddirfd is ignored.

The interpretation of newpath is as for oldpath, except that a relative pathname is interpreted relative to the directory referred to by the file descriptor newdirfd.

See openat(2) for an explanation of the need for renameat().

renameat2()
renameat2() has an additional flags argument. A renameat2() call with a zero flags argument is equivalent to renameat().

The flags argument is a bit mask consisting of zero or more of the following flags:

RENAME_EXCHANGE
Atomically exchange oldpath and newpath. Both pathnames must exist but may be of different types (e.g., one could be a non-empty directory and the other a symbolic link).

RENAME_NOREPLACE
Don’t overwrite newpath of the rename. Return an error if newpath already exists.

RENAME_NOREPLACE can’t be employed together with RENAME_EXCHANGE.

RENAME_NOREPLACE requires support from the underlying filesystem. Support for various filesystems was added as follows:

* ext4 (Linux 3.15);

* btrfs, shmem, and cifs (Linux 3.17);

* xfs (Linux 4.0);

* Support for many other filesystems was added in Linux 4.9, including ext2, minix, reiserfs, jfs, vfat, and bpf.

RENAME_WHITEOUT (since Linux 3.18)
This operation makes sense only for overlay/union filesystem implementations.

Specifying RENAME_WHITEOUT creates a “whiteout” object at the source of the rename at the same time as performing the rename. The whole operation is atomic, so that if the rename succeeds then the whiteout will also have been created.

A “whiteout” is an object that has special meaning in union/overlay filesystem constructs. In these constructs, multiple layers exist and only the top one is ever modified. A whiteout on an upper layer will effectively hide a matching file in the lower layer, making it appear as if the file
didn’t exist.

When a file that exists on the lower layer is renamed, the file is first copied up (if not already on the upper layer) and then renamed on the upper, read-write layer. At the same time, the source file needs to be “whiteouted” (so that the version of the source file in the lower layer is ren‐
dered invisible). The whole operation needs to be done atomically.

When not part of a union/overlay, the whiteout appears as a character device with a {0,0} device number. (Note that other union/overlay implementations may employ different methods for storing whiteout entries; specifically, BSD union mount employs a separate inode type, DT_WHT, which, while
supported by some filesystems available in Linux, such as CODA and XFS, is ignored by the kernel’s whiteout support code, as of Linux 4.19, at least.)

RENAME_WHITEOUT requires the same privileges as creating a device node (i.e., the CAP_MKNOD capability).

RENAME_WHITEOUT can’t be employed together with RENAME_EXCHANGE.

RENAME_WHITEOUT requires support from the underlying filesystem. Among the filesystems that provide that support are tmpfs (since Linux 3.18), ext4 (since Linux 3.18), XFS (since Linux 4.1), f2fs (since Linux 4.2), btrfs (since Linux 4.7), and ubifs (since Linux 4.9).

RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS
EACCES Write permission is denied for the directory containing oldpath or newpath, or, search permission is denied for one of the directories in the path prefix of oldpath or newpath, or oldpath is a directory and does not allow write permission (needed to update the .. entry). (See also path_reso‐
lution(7).)

EBUSY The rename fails because oldpath or newpath is a directory that is in use by some process (perhaps as current working directory, or as root directory, or because it was open for reading) or is in use by the system (for example as mount point), while the system considers this an error. (Note
that there is no requirement to return EBUSY in such cases—there is nothing wrong with doing the rename anyway—but it is allowed to return EBUSY if the system cannot otherwise handle such situations.)

EDQUOT The user’s quota of disk blocks on the filesystem has been exhausted.

EFAULT oldpath or newpath points outside your accessible address space.

EINVAL The new pathname contained a path prefix of the old, or, more generally, an attempt was made to make a directory a subdirectory of itself.

EISDIR newpath is an existing directory, but oldpath is not a directory.

ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving oldpath or newpath.

EMLINK oldpath already has the maximum number of links to it, or it was a directory and the directory containing newpath has the maximum number of links.

ENAMETOOLONG
oldpath or newpath was too long.

ENOENT The link named by oldpath does not exist; or, a directory component in newpath does not exist; or, oldpath or newpath is an empty string.

ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.

ENOSPC The device containing the file has no room for the new directory entry.

ENOTDIR
A component used as a directory in oldpath or newpath is not, in fact, a directory. Or, oldpath is a directory, and newpath exists but is not a directory.

ENOTEMPTY or EEXIST
newpath is a nonempty directory, that is, contains entries other than “.” and “..”.

EPERM or EACCES
The directory containing oldpath has the sticky bit (S_ISVTX) set and the process’s effective user ID is neither the user ID of the file to be deleted nor that of the directory containing it, and the process is not privileged (Linux: does not have the CAP_FOWNER capability); or newpath is an
existing file and the directory containing it has the sticky bit set and the process’s effective user ID is neither the user ID of the file to be replaced nor that of the directory containing it, and the process is not privileged (Linux: does not have the CAP_FOWNER capability); or the filesys‐
tem containing pathname does not support renaming of the type requested.

EROFS The file is on a read-only filesystem.

EXDEV oldpath and newpath are not on the same mounted filesystem. (Linux permits a filesystem to be mounted at multiple points, but rename() does not work across different mount points, even if the same filesystem is mounted on both.)

The following additional errors can occur for renameat() and renameat2():

EBADF olddirfd or newdirfd is not a valid file descriptor.

ENOTDIR
oldpath is relative and olddirfd is a file descriptor referring to a file other than a directory; or similar for newpath and newdirfd

The following additional errors can occur for renameat2():

EEXIST flags contains RENAME_NOREPLACE and newpath already exists.

EINVAL An invalid flag was specified in flags.

EINVAL Both RENAME_NOREPLACE and RENAME_EXCHANGE were specified in flags.

EINVAL Both RENAME_WHITEOUT and RENAME_EXCHANGE were specified in flags.

EINVAL The filesystem does not support one of the flags in flags.

ENOENT flags contains RENAME_EXCHANGE and newpath does not exist.

EPERM RENAME_WHITEOUT was specified in flags, but the caller does not have the CAP_MKNOD capability.

VERSIONS
renameat() was added to Linux in kernel 2.6.16; library support was added to glibc in version 2.4.

renameat2() was added to Linux in kernel 3.15; library support was added in glibc 2.28.

CONFORMING TO
rename(): 4.3BSD, C89, C99, POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.

renameat(): POSIX.1-2008.

renameat2() is Linux-specific.

NOTES
Glibc notes
On older kernels where renameat() is unavailable, the glibc wrapper function falls back to the use of rename(). When oldpath and newpath are relative pathnames, glibc constructs pathnames based on the symbolic links in /proc/self/fd that correspond to the olddirfd and newdirfd arguments.

BUGS
On NFS filesystems, you can not assume that if the operation failed, the file was not renamed. If the server does the rename operation and then crashes, the retransmitted RPC which will be processed when the server is up again causes a failure. The application is expected to deal with this.

SEE ALSO
mv(1), rename(1), chmod(2), link(2), symlink(2), unlink(2), path_resolution(7), symlink(7)