Renaming multiple files - corresponding to a list in file

Question

I am new learner of Linux - Ubuntu. I need to rename a large number of files (keeping same extension) corresponding to a list of names in a file. I have a list of names in a text file.

For example

Current filename => New filename

GCA_001340506.1_ASM54621.fna => wax.fna

GCF_0133435.1_ASM4354653.fna => strains2213.fna

I need to rename current filename with the new filename. As we can see, I need two things first to match the corresponding filename and then rename it.

I cannot find a proper way to complete this task. Kindly help me in this regard.

Awan

Answer 1

If your file format is source.fna => target.fna you can use mmv to rename your files. By leaving out the from to arguments on the command-line, mmv will take source-target pair, one per line, on the standard input.

awk -F '=>' '{print $1 $2}' files.txt | mmv

mmv can actually handle this format directly, but it's more of a coincidence.

mmv ignores lines on the standard input that look like its own error and "done" messages, as well as all lines beginning with white space, and will accept pattern pairs with or without the intervening "->" (or "-^", "=>", or "=^").

cat file.txt | mmv

Answer 2

I created the following function. you have to use in this way:

$ furqan_mv filenames.txt

the file filenames.txt must have the following format:

oldfile => newfile

the extension is always fna. Here is the function:

furqan_mv() {
ext=".fna"
while IFS= read -r line; do
    oldfile=`echo $line | awk '{print $1}'`
    newfile=`echo $line | awk '{print $3}'`
    mv $oldfile.$ext $newfile.$ext
done < $1
}

Answer 3

welcome to Askubuntu!

Would this work?

---

I took the names from this:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/613880/rename-multiple-files-accordingly-with-names-list#613880

since you don't include the contents of the file where the new filenames are

for file in *.fna;

 do
  read line;
   
   mv -v "${file}" "${line}"; done < names.txt

Test run outputs e.g files

• 1.pdf > Fabio.pdf