.\" Written by Andries E. Brouwer (aeb@cwi.nl)
.\" Placed in the public domain
.\"
.TH RENAME 1 "June 2011" "util-linux" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
rename \- rename files
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B rename
[options]
.IR "expression replacement file" ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B rename
will rename the specified files by replacing the first occurrence of
.I expression
in their name by
.IR replacement .
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BR \-s , " \-\-symlink"
Do not rename a symlink but its target.
.TP
.BR \-v , " \-\-verbose"
Show which files where renamed, if any.
.TP
.BR \-V , " \-\-version"
Display version information and exit.
.TP
.BR \-h , " \-\-help"
Display help text and exit.
.SH EXAMPLES
Given the files
.IR foo1 ", ..., " foo9 ", " foo10 ", ..., " foo278 ,
the commands
.RS
.PP
.nf
rename foo foo0 foo?
rename foo foo0 foo??
.fi
.PP
.RE
will turn them into
.IR foo001 ", ..., " foo009 ", " foo010 ", ..., " foo278 .
And
.RS
.PP
.nf
rename .htm .html *.htm
.fi
.PP
.RE
will fix the extension of your html files.
Provide an empty string for shortening:
.RS
.PP
.nf
rename '_with_long_name' '' file_with_long_name.*
.fi
.PP
.RE
will remove the substring in the filenames.
.SH WARNING
The renaming has no safeguards.  If the user has permission to rewrite file names,
the command will perform the action without any questions.  For example, the
result can be quite drastic when the command is run as root in the /lib
directory.  Always make a backup before running the command, unless you truly
know what you are doing.
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
.RS
.PD 0
.TP
.B 0
all requested rename operations were successful
.TP
.B 1
all rename operations failed
.TP
.B 2
some rename operations failed
.TP
.B 4
nothing was renamed
.TP
.B 64
unanticipated error occurred
.PD
.RE
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR mv (1)
.SH AVAILABILITY
The rename command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.