remove space and parenthesis in file names

[Ivan Rusinovitch]

This should be one of the most common scripts available!

Yet I'm going crazy trying to remove special characters and am
very sad that I can't find any good existing script by googling.

Here's the best I have and it doesn't work (only partially).

Do you have a script that just converts all files in a directory
that have spaces and parentheses in the name (and possibly other
special characters if necessary) to underscores?

Here's what I'm using but it is driving me crazy.



#!/bin/bash
# https://md314159265.wordpress.com/2006/08/01/a-script-to-remove-spaces-from-a-file-name/
# Writen by Mayuresh Phadke (mayuresh at gmail.com)

# To change the names of all files in a directory including directory names
# run the command
#
# find . -depth -exec ~/rename.sh {} \;
#
# This command is pretty useful if you have a collection of songs or pictures transferred
# from your windows machine and you are finding it difficult to handle the
# spaces in the filenames on UNIX
#

# set -x

progname=`basename $0`
# if [ $# != 1 ]
# then
# echo "Usage: $progname \"file name with spaces\""
# echo
# echo "This utility is useful for renaming files with spaces in the filename. Spaces in the filename are replaced with _"
# echo "\"file name with spaces\" will be renamed to \"file_name_with_spaces\""
# echo
# exit 1
# fi

# Replace all spaces with underscores
for i in *\ *
do
old_name=$i
echo "old_name = $old_name"
dir=`dirname "$i"`
echo "dir = $dir"
file=`basename "$i"`
echo "file = $file"
done

new_file=`echo $file|sed "s/ /_/g"`
new_name=$dir"/"$new_file
echo "new_file = $new_file"
if [ "$old_name" != "$new_name" ]
then
mv "$old_name" "$new_name"
fi

# Replace all open parenthesis with underscores
for i in *\(*
do
old_name=$i
echo "old_name = $old_name"
dir=`dirname "$i"`
echo "dir = $dir"
file=`basename "$i"`
echo "file = $file"
done

new_file=`echo $file|sed "s/(/_/g"`
new_name=$dir"/"$new_file
echo "new_file = $new_file"
if [ "$old_name" != "$new_name" ]
then
mv "$old_name" "$new_name"
fi

# Replace all closed parenthesis with underscores
for i in *\)*
do
old_name=$i
echo "old_name = $old_name"
dir=`dirname "$i"`
echo "dir = $dir"
file=`basename "$i"`
echo "file = $file"
done

new_file=`echo $file|sed "s/)/_/g"`
new_name=$dir"/"$new_file
echo "new_file = $new_file"
if [ "$old_name" != "$new_name" ]
then
mv "$old_name" "$new_name"
fi

exit 0

[William Unruh]

for i in *
do
j=`echo $i|tr ' ()' '_'`
mv $i $j
done

[William Unruh]

Sorry, that should be
mv "$i" "$j"

Otherwise the spaces act as word breaks.

>

[Teemu Likonen]

Ivan Rusinovitch [2016-03-27 05:12:28Z] wrote:

> Do you have a script that just converts all files in a directory that
> have spaces and parentheses in the name (and possibly other special
> characters if necessary) to underscores?

Not quite but I have made "translit-mv" script that renames files and
allows only [a-z0-9._-] characters. It's public domain so copy, modify
and share as you will (see the attachment).


Usage: translit-mv [OPTIONS] [--] SOURCE ...

Convert SOURCE filename(s) to safe ASCII versions which contain only
[a-z0-9._-] characters. Also truncate consecutive [._-] characters to
just one.

Options:

-t, --test Test run. Treat SOURCE parameters as plain filename strings
and show how the basename(s) would be converted. This is
a safe option; SOURCE(s) don't need to be existing
files.

-v, --verbose
Explain what is being done.

-h, --help Display this help and exit.

[Pedro Valdez]

Does translit get rid of " / " space slash space?
I have files on a PVR with that because it is in a TV station ID.
Cannot read those files in both linux and Windoze.

[Chris Ahlstrom]

William Unruh wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On 2016-03-27, Ivan Rusinovitch <ivanruss...@x.invalid> wrote:
>> This should be one of the most common scripts available!
>>
>> Yet I'm going crazy trying to remove special characters and am
>> very sad that I can't find any good existing script by googling.
>

> for i in *
> do
> j=`echo $i|tr ' ()' '_'`
> mv $i $j
> done

There are also a few "rename" scripts out there, at least one of
which let's one rename files using regular expressions.

--
Your reasoning is excellent -- it's only your basic assumptions that are wrong.

[Jasen Betts]

On 2016-03-27, Ivan Rusinovitch <ivanruss...@x.invalid> wrote:

> This should be one of the most common scripts available!

> Yet I'm going crazy trying to remove special characters and am
> very sad that I can't find any good existing script by googling.

try file-rename
https://metacpan.org/release/File-Rename
debian package "rename"

eg: file-rename 's/[\(\)_]+/ /g' filenames



--
\_(ツ)_