Writing

Ruby Batch Rename Script

Posted 20. Feb, 2009 in Life

So I’ve recently gotten into scripting in ruby and with a couple of scripts you really can save yourself a lot of tedious work in the future. Here’s one i wrote that does a batch rename of all files in a given folder and its subfolders. You can do either of the following:

Enter 3 parameters:

  1. input directory
  2. search string
  3. replacement string
Or just enter 2 parameters in which case the search string will be removed from all files:
  1. input directory
  2. search string
Remember, to enter the parameters in that order, <input dir> <search string> [<replacement string>].

#!/usr/bin/ruby
# Dmitry Nedospasov
# Batch Rename
# 2 parameters: batchrename.rb <input dir> <search string>
# <search string> will be completely removed from all occurances
# 3 parameters: batrename.rb <input dir> <search string> <replacement string>
# all occurances of <search string> will be replaced with <replacement string>

require 'ftools'
def parseargs(arguments, stdin)
  # puts arguments
  dir = arguments[0]
  oldExt = arguments[1]
  newExt = arguments[2]
  puts dir
  puts oldExt
  puts newExt
  if oldExt == nil or dir == nil
  puts 'Please enter atleast the first 2 parameters: '
  puts ' <input directory> <search string> [<replacement string>]'
  else
    convertFromTo(dir,oldExt,newExt)
  end
end
def convertFromTo(dir, oldExt, newExt)
  files = Dir.entries(dir)
  files.each do |f|
    next if f == '.' or f == '..'
    fullPath = dir + '/' + f
    # fullPath = fullPath.gsub(' ','\ ')
    if File.directory?(fullPath)
      puts 'Found directory: ' + fullPath
      convertFromTo(fullPath, oldExt, newExt)
    else
      if newExt == nil
        newName = fullPath.gsub(oldExt,'')
      else
        newName = fullPath.gsub(oldExt,newExt)
      end
      if fullPath != newName
        puts fullPath + ' -> ' + newName
        File.rename(fullPath,newName)
      end
    end
  end
end

parseargs(ARGV, STDIN)

and what you should get is something like this


russo@guevara:~/Desktop$ ./batchrename.rb . stpuid stupid
.
stpuid
stupid
Found directory: ./stupidtypo
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo1.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo1.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo10.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo10.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo2.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo2.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo3.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo3.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo4.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo4.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo5.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo5.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo6.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo6.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo7.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo7.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo8.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo8.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo9.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo9.txt

Enjoy!!! and here’s the file for download

Tags: , , , ,