NAME

tren - Advanced File Renaming

SYNOPSIS

tren.py [-bdehipqtvwx] [-l string] [-r old=new]... [-s number] file|dir file|dir ...

DESCRIPTION

Warning

tren is a powerful file and directory renaming tool. It is entirely possible to clobber files by renaming one file so as to delete another one with that same name. Be sure you know what you're about to do. If you're not, run the program in test mode (invoke with the -t option) to see what could happen. You have been warned!

tren is a general purpose file and directory renaming tool. Unlike commands like mv, tren is particularly well suited for renaming batches of files and/or directories with a single command line invocation.

tren supports two kinds of renaming operations, String Substitution and Rename By Date.

String Substition

String substitution is handy when you have files and directories that have a common set of characters in them you'd like to change. For instance:

tren -r .Jpeg=.jpg files.Jpeg

would rename all files (or directories) whose names contained the string .Jpeg and replace it with .jpg. It's important to realize that such a substitution takes place anywhere in the filename, not just at the end or "extension" (as it is called in Windows).

By default, only the first instance of the string is replaced in the name, but you can use the -g option to replace all instances of the old string with the new one.

Ordinarily tren treats both the old string you specify with the -r option literally. However, it is sometimes handy to be able to write a regular expression to specify what you want replaced. If you specify the -x option, tren will treat your old string as a Python style regex, compile it (or try to anyway!) and use it to select which strings to replace. This makes it much easier to rename files that have repeated characters or patterns, and groups of files that have similar, but not idential strings in their names you'd like to replace.

Rename By Date

OPTIONS

-b Exclude file/directory "extension" when doing string substitution. (Default: Substitute within the entire file/directory name)

-d Rename by date sequence. (Default: Rename via string replacement.)

-e Only do string substitutions in the filename "extension". (Default: Substitute within the entire file/directory name)

-g Replace all instances (greedy replace) of the old string with the new.

-h Print help information.

-i Use ISO date format when renaming by date sequence. (Default: "YYYYMMDD")

-l string File "extension" delimiter string. (Default: ".")

-p Prepend, do not replace, file name with date sequence. (Default: Replace filename)

-q Quiet mode, do not show progress. (Default: Display progress)

-r Replace "oldstring" with "newstring" in filenames.

-s number Set starting sequence number when renaming by date. (Default: 0)

-t Test mode, don't rename, just show what the program would do (ignores -q).

-v Print detailed program version information and exit.

-w Turn off warnings about potentially overwriting existing files or directories. (Default: Warn if target exists.)

-x Treat the old string in a -r replacement as a Python style regular expression for matching purposes. (Default: Treat the old string as literal text)

EXAMPLES

OTHER

You must have a reasonably current version of Python installed.

BUGS AND MISFEATURES

None known as of this release.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING

For terms of use, see the tren-license.txt file in the program distribution. If you install tren on a FreeBSD system using the 'ports' mechanism, you will also find this file in /usr/local/share/doc/tren.

AUTHOR

Tim Daneliuk
tren@tundraware.com

DOCUMENT REVISION INFORMATION

$Id: tren.rst,v 1.107 2010/01/15 02:42:36 tundra Exp $

You can find the latest version of this program at:

http://www.tundraware.com/Software/tren