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Asked: 2026-06-11T23:33:27+00:00

I have been using the rename command to batch rename files. Up to now,

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I have been using the rename command to batch rename files. Up to now, I have had files like:

2010.306.18.08.11.0000.BO.ADM..BHZ.SAC
2010.306.18.08.11.0000.BO.AMM..BHZ.SAC
2010.306.18.08.11.0000.BO.ASI..BHE.SAC
2010.306.18.08.11.0000.BO.ASI..BHZ.SAC

and using rename 2010.306.18.08.11.0000.BO. "" * and rename .. _. * I have reduced them to:

ADM_.BHZ.SAC
AMM_.BHZ.SAC
ASI_.BHE.SAC
ASI_.BHZ.SAC

which is exactly what I want. A bit clumsy, I guess, but it works. The problem occurs now that I have files like:

2010.306.18.06.12.8195.TW.MASB..BHE.SAC
2010.306.18.06.14.7695.TW.CHGB..BHN.SAC
2010.306.18.06.24.4195.TW.NNSB..BHZ.SAC
2010.306.18.06.25.0695.TW.SSLB..BHZ.SAC

which exist in the same folder. I have been trying to get the similar results to above using wildcards in the rename command eg. rename 2010.306.18.*.*.*.*. "" but this appends the first appearance of 2010.306.18.*.*.*.*. to the beginning of all the other files – clearly not what I’m after, such that I get:

2010.306.18.06.12.8195.TW.MASB..BHE.SAC
2010.306.18.06.12.8195.TW.MASB..BHE.SAC2010.306.18.06.14.7695.TW.CHGB..BHN.SAC
2010.306.18.06.12.8195.TW.MASB..BHE.SAC2010.306.18.06.24.4195.TW.NNSB..BHZ.SAC
2010.306.18.06.12.8195.TW.MASB..BHE.SAC2010.306.18.06.25.0695.TW.SSLB..BHZ.SAC

I guess I am not understanding a fairly fundamental principal of wildcards here so, can someone please explain why this doesn’t work and what I can do to get the desired result (preferably using rename).

N.B.

To clarify, the output wants to be:

ADM_.BHZ.SAC
AMM_.BHZ.SAC
ASI_.BHE.SAC
ASI_.BHZ.SAC
MASB.BHE.SAC
CHGB.BHN.SAC
NNSB.BHZ.SAC
SSLB.BHZ.SAC
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    rename does not allow wildcards in the from and to strings. When you run rename 2010.306.18.*.*.*.*. "" * it is actually your shell which first expands the wildcard and then passes the result of the expansion to rename, hence why it does not work.

    Instead of using rename, use a loop as follows:

    for file in *
do
  tmp="${file##2010*TW.}"   # remove the file prefix
  mv "$file" "${tmp/../_}"  # replace dots with underscore
done
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