.\" 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 were renamed, if any.
.TP
.BR \-n , " \-\-no\-act"
Do not make any changes.
.TP
.BR \-o , " \-\-no\-overwrite"
Do not overwrite existing files.  When
.BR \-\-symlink
is active, do not overwrite symlinks pointing to existing targets.
.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 foo00 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 except the
.B \-\-no\-act
option.  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
https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
