What is the best way to replace all consecutive characters such as _+-."'? from a directory and all sub directory's names using GNU bash, version 4.3, using tools awk, sed, Perl rename or find?
AS suggested by @Ralf to rephrase:
The example would be to rename directories from
inital_situation
.
├── dir1---FooFoo---xFoo.FOO
│ └── file1---FooFoo---xFoo.FOO.mp4
├── dir2+++FooFOO___xFoo.FOO
│ └── file2___FooFOO___xFoo.FOO.mp4
├── dir3...FooFOO...xFoo...FOO
│ └── file3...FooFOO...xFoo...FOO.mp4
├── dir4._-FOO._-xFoo._-FOO
│ └── file4._-FOO._-xFoo._-FOO.mp4
├── dir5+++FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_xFoo
│ └── file5_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_xFoo.mp4
├── file1---FooFoo---xFoo.FOO.mp4
├── file2+++FooFOO___xFoo.FOO.mp4
├── file3...FooFOO...xFoo...FOO.mp4
├── file4._-FOO._-xFoo._-FOO.mp4
├── file5+++FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_FOO_-_xFoo.mp4
├── xFoo_-[xFoo]_-[dir6]
│ └── xFoo_-[xFoo]-file6.mp4
└── xFoo_-[xFoo]-file6.mp4
to
expected_results
.
├── dir1-FooFoo-xFoo-FOO
│ └── file1-FooFoo-xFoo-FOO.mp4
├── dir2-FooFOO-xFoo-FOO
│ └── file2-FooFOO-xFoo-FOO.mp4
├── dir3-FooFOO-xFoo-FOO
│ └── file3-FooFOO-xFoo-FOO.mp4
├── dir4-FOO-xFoo-FOO
│ └── file4-FOO-xFoo-FOO.mp4
├── dir5-FOO-FOO-FOO-FOO-FOO-FOO-xFoo
│ └── file5-FOO-FOO-FOO-FOO-FOO-FOO-xFoo.mp4
├── file1-FooFoo-xFoo-FOO.mp4
├── file2-FooFOO-xFoo-FOO.mp4
├── file3-FooFOO-xFoo-FOO.mp4
├── file4-FOO-xFoo-FOO.mp4
├── file5-FOO-FOO-FOO-FOO-FOO-FOO-xFoo.mp4
├── xFoo-xFoo-dir6
│ └── xFoo-xFoo-file6.mp4
└── xFoo-xFoo-file6.mp4
The following 2 examples from this post works well for renaming directories, sub directories and files.
find -name "* *" -type d | rename 's/ /_/g' # do the directories first
find -name "* *" -type f | rename 's/ /_/g'
This is able to handle multiple layers of files and directories in a single bound
find . -depth -name "* *" -execdir rename 's/_/-/g' "{}" \;
I have attempted several versions to replace or remove certain characters.
Replace dots and replace underscores
for f in *; do fn=`echo $f | sed 's/\(.*\)\.\([^.]*\)$/\1\n\2/;s/\./-/g;s/\n/./g'`; mv $f $fn; done
The following will remove brackets and parenthesis
rename 's/\[//g' * ; rename 's/\]//g' *
rename 's/\(//g' * ; rename 's/\)//g' *