Description

This repository contains the mvgp (group file renaming) command and support files.

Version

This is the distribution of mvgp and cpgp, version 1.2, February 2000. This README.md file was updated in June of 2019.

Conventions

In this README file, a dollar sign ($) followed by a space is used to signify the bash (or other Bourne-like shell) prompt.

Introduction

mvgp renames or copies groups of files. As a quick example, suppose you have the following files from your digital camera in a directory:

IMG-20180323-45261.JPG IMG-20180323-45262.JPG IMG-20180323-45263.JPG IMG-20180323-45264.JPG IMG-20180323-45265.JPG

and you want more descriptive file names. The following command

$ mvgp IMG-20180323-452 BellRock-24March2018- *.JPG

will rename the files to

BellRock-24March2018-61.JPG BellRock-24March2018-62.JPG BellRock-24March2018-63.JPG BellRock-24March2018-64.JPG BellRock-24March2018-65.JPG

and then the command

$ mvgp JPG jpg *.JPG

Changes the uppercase JPG extension to lowercase.

The first argument is what to change, the second is what to change it to, and the rest of the arguments are the names of files to rename or copy.

The first argument may use Bash's pattern matching operators to match a pattern, rather than a literal string. And of course, the list of files to rename or copy may be specified by the shell's file globbing operators (*, ?, and []).

More Examples

Append .txt to the names of all files in the directory:

$ ls abc def ghi jkl $ mvgp '%' .txt * $ ls abc.txt def.txt ghi.txt jkl.txt

Prepend filename. to the names of all files starting with a or d:

$ ls abc def ghi jkl $ mvgp '#' filename. [ad]* $ ls filename.abc filename.def ghi jkl

Change every occurence of a to o in files starting with a d:

$ ls aaa abc abe backup bad cab cabe dab dala fab $ mvgp -m a o d* $ ls aaa abc abe backup bad cab cabe dob dolo fab

Change the three-character string of composed of any character, followed by an a, followed by any character, to aoe in the names of all files in the current working directory:

$ ls aaa abc abe backup bad cab cabe dob dolo fab $ mvgp '?a?' aoe * $ ls abc abe aoe aoee aoekup dob dolo

Notice that this renamed three files to aoe, and as a result, two files were lost. Be careful; mvgp is a powerful command. If in doubt, use the -C (noclobber), -I (interactive), -n ("nop", or no operation) options to keep mvgp from performing unwanted actions.

Installation

To install mvgp and cpgp, edit the Makefile to set BINDIR to the directory where you want mvgp and cpgp to be located, then run the command

$ sudo make install

(sudo is necessary only if you are copying to a system directory, or any other that your regular account does not have permission to write to.)

Manual Page Installation

To install the manual page for mvgp, edit Makefile to set MANDIR to the directory where you want mvgp manual page to be located, then run this command:

$ sudo make install-man

Documentation

Run the command man mvgp to read the manual page, or mvgp -h to read a manpage-like help document.

Manual Page

A copy of the manual page is included here for convenience. To display it better, install it on your system and use a man mvgp command to view it.

``` MVGP(1) User Commands MVGP(1)

NAME mvgp - mvgp, cpgp

NAME mvgp - rename a group of files

   cpgp - make copies of a group of files

SYNOPSIS mvgp [-opts] pattern replacement files

   cpgp [-opts] pattern replacement files

DESCRIPTION mvgp(1) and cpgp(1) operate on a group of files, changing their names using a search-and-replace method specified by the first two non-option arguments (called pattern and replacement above).

   mvgp  renames  files, identically to the mv(1) command, and cpgp copies
   files in a manner identical to the cp(1) command.

   pattern is the substring that exists in the files´ names, that is to be
   replaced  with  replacement.  pattern and replacement may contain slash
   characters that will be interpreted as directory path specifiers.

SPECIFYING PATTERNS pattern is treated as a pattern that can match parts of file names in the argument list using the *, ? and [] metacharacters. This matching happens after the shell has created a list of filenames, which may also involve expanding metacharacters.

   If  the  pattern begins with a #, it must match at the beginning of the
   file name. If the pattern begins with a %, it must match at the end  of
   the  file name. See the section on "Parameter Expansion" in the bash(1)
   manual page for details.

OPTIONS -b, -f, -i, -S suffix, -u, -V word (mvgp or cpgp) -a, -d, -l, -p, -P, -r, -R, -s, -x (cpgp only) These are passed directly through to the mv or cp command, which does the actual renaming or copying of files. See mv(1) and cp(1) for documentation on these.

   -C  Noclobber. Don´t replace files that already exist.

   -h  Show this help message.

   -I  Interactive - ask for permission before renaming or copying.
       The the operation that is about to be performed is printed,
       followed by a ´?´. Valid responses are:

           y, Y, Yes, yes, YES: Go ahead and rename or copy
               the file.
           n, N, No, no, NO: Skip the file.
           a, A, All, all, ALL: Perform this renaming or copying,
               and all others that follow (exit -I mode).
           q, Q, Quit, quit, QUIT: Don´t rename or copy this file
               or any others that follow. (Exit the program.)

       All other responses are treated as a ´no´. The response
       must be followed by a press of the Enter (Return) key.

   -L  (Loud) Report what mv or cp operations are performed, using
       the exact syntax of the mv or cp command that was executed.

   -m  Perform multiple substitutions. If pattern exists more
       than once in the original file name, it will be replaced
       for each occurrence. Without the -m option, only the first
       occurrence will be replaced.

   -n  Don´t rename or copy files; just tell what would be done.
       (Show the exact mv or cp commands that would execute.)

   -v  Report release version of mvgp/cpgp and the mv or cp command.
       Don´t do anything else.

EXAMPLES Example 1: Inserting

       $ cpgp txt bak.txt book*

   Make backup files of all files whose names start with "book". The  sub‐
   string  "txt" in the files´ names is replaced with "bak.txt". For exam‐
   ple, if there were files called

       book-chapter-1.txt
       book-chapter-2.txt
       book-chapter-3.txt

   copies of those files would be made with the names

       book-chapter-1.bak.txt
       book-chapter-2.bak.txt
       book-chapter-3.bak.txt

   Example 2: Replacing

       $ mvgp new old *new*

   For each file in the current directory that has the string  "new"  any‐
   where  in  its  name, replace the first occurrence of "new" with "old".
   Files called ...

       the-new-version.c
       new-version-header.h
       my-new-version.readme
       a_new_newt
       newspaper.doc

   ... would be renamed as ...

       the-old-version.c
       old-version-header.h
       my-old-version.readme
       a_old_newt
       oldspaper.doc

   Example 3: De-spacing file names

       $ mvgp -m -L ´ ´ - *

   Replace all of the spaces in filenames of files in the  current  direc‐
   tory  with  dash  (minus) characters. Report each rename operation that
   happens.

   Example 4: Deleting

       $ mvgp ´-´ ´´ -*

   For files in the current directory whose names start with a ´-´ charac‐
   ter,  remove that leading ´-´ from the name (i.e., replace the ´-´ with
   nothing). Note that in this case, it is not necessary to  give  mvgp  a
   ´--´  option to keep it from treating ´-´ as an option. However, if the
   pattern were ´-m´ or something else that looks  like  a  valid  option,
   then the command would be

       $ mvgp -- ´-m´ ´m´ -*

   (which would do the same thing as the first command).

   Example 5: Changing the extensions, or end of files´ names

       $ mvgp ´%.old´ .bak *.old

   For  all  files in the current directory that end in ".old", the exten‐
   sion will be changed to ".bak".

   Example 6: Changing the beginning of the names

       $ mvgp ´#re´ un re*

   All files in the current directory whose names  start  with  "re"  will
   have  "re"  changed to "un" in their names. (I.e., files named "redo.1"
   and "redo.2" will be renamed "undo.1" and "undo.2", respectively.)

   Example 7: Pattern matching in the pattern

   Suppose we have files named

       written-by-Stan
       painted-by-Jane
       sculpted-by-Bob
       built-by-Andrew

   and we want to change them to all start out with "created-by". One  way
   to do that would be

       $ mvgp ´*-by´ created-by *-by-*

   If we only wanted to operate on the first three, we could say

       $ mvgp ´*e?-by´ created-by *-by-*

   or

       $ mvgp ´*-by´ created-by *e?-by-*

   Example 8: Directories in search-and-replace strings

       $ mvgp ´projects/´ ´backburner/source-´ projects/code/*

   move   all   of   the   files   and  directories  in  the  subdirectory
   "projects/code" to the directory "backburner/source-code".

IMPLEMENTATION mvgp and cpgp are implemented as a single bash shell script. Both com‐ mands are actually the same program; the function is determined by the name of the executable file. cpgp is simply a symbolic link to the mvgp script.

BUGS None known. If you find a bug, please report it to the author.