why this bash script is not working when trying to rename existing files

Question

i have this script and a dir file with some Sip_* files and i need to rename them to SIP_*

for i in Sip_R*.csv
do
   echo "processing $i"
   NEWNAME="$(i/Sip%/SIP)"
   echo "newname is $NEWNAME"
   mv -- "$i" "$NEWNAME"
done

and i receiving

 processing Sip_Reg-generated1415879496958.csv
 digest-reg-files.sh: line 5: i/Sip%/SIP: No such file or directory
 newname is
 mv: cannot move `Sip_Reg-generated1415879496958.csv' to `': No such file or directory
 processing Sip_Reg-generated1415879504694.csv
 digest-reg-files.sh: line 5: i/Sip%/SIP: No such file or directory
 newname is
 mv: cannot move `Sip_Reg-generated1415879504694.csv' to `': No such file or directory

I have modified the solution provided by Renaming multiples files with a bash loop and it is not working.

The machine is some centos, 2.6.32-358.el6.x86_64 and bash version is 4.1.2(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)

Have you tried using rename instead? $ rename Sip_ SIP_ *.csv linux.die.net/man/1/rename — Bernhard
– Bernhard, Commented Nov 13, 2014 at 13:02

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 10:33:41Z

2

Your brackets are wacky. The syntax for string substitution in Bash uses curly braces, not round parentheses.

Also, like the answer you link to explains, the percent sign anchors the substitution to the end of the string, which is not what you want here. Use /# instead to anchor to the beginning of the string; or you could use ${i/Sip/SIP} to not anchor at all (you already know the first occurrence is at the beginning of the string anyway).

NEWNAME="${i/#Sip/SIP}"

Kudos for properly quoting everything!

edited May 23, 2017 at 10:33

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answered Nov 13, 2014 at 13:42

tripleee

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3 Comments

chepner Over a year ago

The percent sign in the linked answer is the suffix-anchor modifier to ${var/}: "${i/%.fasta/.fa}" means that .fasta is only replaced by .fa if it occurs at the end of the parameter value. As a sed-like substitution, it would look like s/\.fasta$/.fa/. The OP might have mistaken it for * to match any preceding characters; its use here would seem to attempt to match everything following "Sip".

chepner Over a year ago

And you noted the same thing in your answer while I was commenting :)

tripleee Over a year ago

Actually I learned something new today, I had not stumbled across this particular twist in the syntax before. Thanks @Benoit wherever you are (-:

ua2b · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-13 13:09:30Z

1

The original solution mentioned above uses something like (in your case):

NEWNAME="$( echo "$i" | sed -e 's/Sip/SIP/' )"

The content of $(…) is executed in a subshell and must be regular code which i/Sip%/SIP is not. Maybe a typo?

answered Nov 13, 2014 at 13:09

ua2b

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