[SOLVED] Renaming bunch of files with xargs

Issue

I've been trying to rename a bunch of files in a proper order using xargs but to no avail. While digging around on piles of similar question, I found answers with the use of sed alongside xargs. Novice me wants to avoid the use of sed. I presume there must be some easier way around.

To be more specific, I've got some files as follows:

Abc.jpg
Def.jpg
Ghi.jpg
Jkl.jpg

and I want these to be renamed in an ordered way, like:

Something1.jpg
Something2.jpg
Something3.jpg
Something4.jpg

Could xargs command along with seq achieve this? If so, how do I implement it?

Solution

I don't know why anyone would try to engage sed for this. Probably not xargs or seq, either. Here's a pure-Bash one-liner:

(x=1; for f in *.jpg; do mv "$f" "Something$((x++)).jpg"; done)

At its core, that's a for loop over the files you want to rename, performing a mv command on each one. The files to operate on are expressed via a single glob expression, but you could also name them individually, use multiple globs, or use one of a variety of other techniques. Variable x is used as a simple counter, initialized to 1 before entering the loop. $((x++)) expands to the current value of x, with the side effect of incrementing x by 1. The whole thing is wrapped in parentheses to run it in a subshell, so that nothing in it affects the host shell environment. (In this case, that means it does not create or modify any variable x in the invoking shell.)

If you were putting that in a script instead of typing it on the command line then it would be more readable to split it over several lines:

(
  x=1
  for f in *.jpg; do
    mv "$f" "Something$((x++)).jpg"
  done
)

You can type it that way, too, if you wish.

Answered By - John Bollinger

Answer Checked By - Mildred Charles (WPSolving Admin)