Using rename

A generally useful tool for this type of activity is rename from the perl package. It applies a perl substitution to the file name:

rename 's/file/file0/' file[0-9][0-9].ext

How this works:

• s/file/file0/

  
  
  

  This is a perl substitution command. It replaces the occurrence of file in a file name with file0.




• file[0-9][0-9].ext

  
  
  

  This is the list of files that rename is to operate on. [0-9] means any number from 0 to 9. [0-9][0-9] means any two numbers, one following the other.

The manpage for rename is here.

Note: This requires the perl version of rename. There is also a rename utility that is part of util-linux but it works differently.

Using bash

This approach uses a for loop combined with pattern substitution:

for f in file[0-9][0-9].ext; do mv "$f" "${f/file/file0}"; done

How it works:

• for f in file[0-9][0-9].ext; do

  
  
  

  This starts a loop over each file name that matches the glob file[0-9][0-9].ext.




• mv "$f" "${f/file/file0}"

  
  
  

  This renames the files using the bash's pattern substitution. It replaces file with file0` in the file name.




• done

  
  
  

  This marks the end of the for loop.

This approach requires bash (or other advanced shell).

bash is the default interactive shell and this approach will work under bash. Thus, this should work on the usual command line.