[X-Unix] Renaming files with spaces

[Eugene]

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 09:26:19AM CDT, Charles Howse <chowse at charter.net> wrote:
> 
> I need to batch rename all files with extension .PDF to extension .pdf.
> They may or may not have spaces in the filenames.
>
> The following works ONLY if there are no spaces in the filename:
>
> for f in *.PDF; do
> 	base=`basename $f .PDF`
> 	mv $f $base.pdf
> done
>
> Can anyone provide a tip to something that will work regardless of  
> whether there are spaces in the filenames or not?

Use quotation marks to help protect spaces.

for f in *.PDF; do
	base=`basename "$f" .PDF`
	mv "$f" "$base.pdf"
done

For the more curious, man bash and check out the lengthy section
titled EXPANSION.


-- 
Eugene
http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/