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52 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
52 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
# Rename A Bunch Of Files By Constructing mv Commands
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I downloaded a bunch of bank statements as PDFs. On the upside they all were
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consistently named. On the downside they used an unhelpful date format. With a
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date format that puts year before month before day, the files easily sort
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alphanumerically. However, these filenames used a date format that put month
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before day before year.
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Here is a subset of the files
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```bash
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$ ls *.pdf
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'012524 Statement.pdf'
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'012725 Statement.pdf'
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'022624 Statement.pdf'
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'022625 Statement.pdf'
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'032524 Statement.pdf'
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'032525 Statement.pdf'
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```
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Notice they are named with `MMDDYY Statement.pdf`. I would instead like for them
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to be named as `YYYY-MM-DD-statement.pdf`.
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I can generate a series of `mv` statements that then get piped to `sh` which
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_evaluates_ them. But first, let's do a dry run of a `sed` statement that
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rearranges the date parts.
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```bash
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$ ls *.pdf | sed 's/\(..\)\(..\)\(..\) Statement\.pdf/mv "&" "20\3-\1-\2-statement.pdf"/'
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mv "012524 Statement.pdf" "2024-01-25-statement.pdf"
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mv "012725 Statement.pdf" "2025-01-27-statement.pdf"
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mv "022624 Statement.pdf" "2024-02-26-statement.pdf"
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mv "022625 Statement.pdf" "2025-02-26-statement.pdf"
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mv "032524 Statement.pdf" "2024-03-25-statement.pdf"
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mv "032525 Statement.pdf" "2025-03-25-statement.pdf"
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```
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The way this works is that all the `pdf` files in the current directly get
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listed out. That gets piped to a `sed` statement that matches on capture groups
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against the first three pairs of characters (the date parts) in the filenames.
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It matches on the rest of the filename (` Statement.pdf`). This is then replaced
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by a `mv `, the full match of the original filename (`&`), and then the new
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filename made up of the rearranged date parts.
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I can then pipe it to `sh` to run those `mv` commands.
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```bash
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$ ls *.pdf |
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sed 's/\(..\)\(..\)\(..\) Statement\.pdf/mv "&" "20\3-\1-\2-statement.pdf"/' |
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sh
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```
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