Re: [Help-bash] how to bulk rename files

[Clark Wang]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 04:54, DJ Mills <address@hidden> wrote:

On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Eric Blake <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 04/11/2012 02:44 PM, address@hidden wrote:
>> I have many files, 2.5 million, that I have to make available to Windows
>> folks
>> They demand that the files have a extension added
>> Is there an efficient method of bulk renaming files
>
> If you're wanting to use just bash features:
>
> for f in $(generate your list of files); do
>  mv "$f" "$f.ext"
> done
>
> If you want efficient, there's several purpose-built tools for this job,
> but it is no longer a question for the bash list.  My favorite:
>
> man mmv
>
> --
> Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-919-301-3266
> Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
>

This is a TERRIBLE idea, as attempting to word-split a command
substitution will fail horribly on any filenames with spaces (which is
very common in Windows), and will attempt pathname expansion on the
output. A simple glob should be used, or -exec if find is used.

A glob expansion may cause the command line to be too long since the OP has 2.5 million files?