Re: rename command

[Sami Kerola]

On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 23:37, James Youngman <address@hidden> wrote:
> If we're going to implement a "rename" command, can we make one that
> copes with internal newlines (IIRC "rename" does not) and doesn't
> force the user to assume path names are text[1]?
>
> [1] UNIX-like kernels mostly think path names are byte sequences
> terminated by '\0', possibly including one or more instances of '/'.
> In particular, filesystems routinely contain files with a multiplicity
> of character encodings.

Sounds reasonable. After hearing what you and others has said I made
couple modifications to the command.

o Support recursion.

o Support input from stdin, and have a switch for null terminated
names. That will allow find -print0 | rename combination to rock.

o Add upper & lower casing options, which needs to obey locale.

o Add --test option. If this option is really wanted I need assistance
how to make test work properly. The current copy.h flags does not
support test and I feel reluctant to add such. Secondly this is not
even that simple. With --sed one can do such wacky renames that
expressing how the situation will look like after a run might be very
difficult.

o Add --sed to do complicated name manipulations (only an idea).
Assuming this is desired should I simply copy all necessary code from
sed to be a coreutils/src/sed_functions.c? Perhaps sed style string
manipulations should be part of gnulib. Perhaps something other,
better and maintainer acceptable?

See bellow snapshot of a usage output after latest modifications. Same
can be found in rough and functionally broken patch attachment.

-- snip
$ ./rename --help
Usage: ./rename [OPTION]... EXPRESSION REPLACEMENT FILE...
  or:  ./rename [OPTION]... FILE...
  or:  ./rename [OPTION]...
Rename lots of files in directory.

      --files0-from=FILE  read rename entries from NUL-terminated file
  -r, -R, --recursive     rename in directories recursively
  -D, --dereference-args  dereference only symlinks that are listed on the
                            command line
  -L, --dereference       dereference all symbolic links
  -x, --one-file-system   skip directories on different file systems
      --backup[=CONTROL]  make a backup of each existing destination file
  -b                      like --backup but does not accept an argument
  -S, --suffix=SUFFIX     override the usual backup suffix
  -f, --force             do not prompt before overwriting
  -i, --interactive       prompt before overwrite
  -n, --no-clobber        do not overwrite an existing file
If you specify more than one of -f, -i, -n, only the final one takes effect.
      --sed=s/regexp/replacement/
                          use sed regular expression replace syntax FIXME
  -u, --uppercase         upper case the names FIXME
  -l, --lowercase         lower case the names FIXME
  -t, --test              show a dry-run print out FIXME
  -v, --verbose           explain what is being done
      --help     display this help and exit
      --version  output version information and exit
-- snip

p.s. I will away keyboard for next week so finalization of the command
needs to wait a bit. Good side is that a pause of a week will give
plenty of time to discuss about the utility.

-- 
   Sami Kerola
   http://www.iki.fi/kerolasa/

0001-rename-move-command-from-util-linux-to-coreutils-packa.txt
Description: Text document