Re: Renaming files using wildcards

From: Vincent Fatica (abuse_at_localhost.com)
Date: 09/04/04 

Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 04:40:33 GMT

Here's a one-liner that seems to work here in a folder with 1000 files
(no guarantees).

        for /f %f in ('dir /b') do ren "%f" "c_%f"

That is: for each line in the output of the 'DIR /B" command (bare file
names), rename the file with the prefix "c_". I used double quotes to
avoid problems with file names containing spaces.

Try 'FOR /?' for more info on the FOR command

Using wildcards generally won't work. Wildcards cause windows to
enumerate the files in a directory. Using a command like the one below,
it is easy to get CMD.EXE into a loop wherein it keeps finding new files
(the newly renamed ones) and renames them again.

        Don't do this: for %f in (*.*) do ren %f c_%f

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 20:24:19 -0700, "Jerry Blake"
<bbibooks@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

>I have a folder with many files in it that I want to
>rename with a common prefix. I want to add "c_" to the
>front end of a filename and I want to do that all in one
>fell swoop like this from a run cmd line:
>
>Ren *.* c_*.*
>
>It substitutes c_ for the first 2 characters of the
>existing filename.
>
>I've also tried ren *.* c_ & *.* and ren *.* + *.* and
>they don't work. If this can be done from other than the
>command line, that would be acceptable, as long as I
>don't have to rename each file individually.
>Any ideas?
>
>Jerry 

-- 
 - Vince

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