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5

Code works in terminal but not in script for renaming (manipulate filenames with spaces)

rated 0 times [ 5] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 958 / 2 Years ago, sat, march 5, 2022, 5:04:24

I want to learn more so I have tried to script more than just using the terminal. I know rename and I can rename image files with rename 's/ /_/g' *.jpg but when I write it in a shell script to point at a directory:

DIRECTORY="/foo/bar"



for imgfile in $(find $DIRECTORY -type f -name *.jpg); do

    echo 'replacing whitespace in' $(basename $imgfile)

    rename -f 's/ /_/g' *.jpg 

done

it doesn't work and the terminal will take a file (example: 1234 abcd.jpg) and echo abcd.jpg. So where am I going wrong?

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poefor

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2 Years ago

answered 2 Years ago allally · Accepted Answer

Spaces in filenames are evil.

I see three problems with the script:

when doing the for... loop, you will have two different values when you find a file with space. i.e., if you have the files "file1 1.jpg" and "file2 2.jpg" and you do:
```
for i in $(find . -type f -name *.jpg); do 

   echo $i

done
```
You'll have
```
./file1 

1.jpg

./file2

2.jpg
```
because the shell breaks the argument at spaces. The output of the $(find ...) command will be
```
./file1 1.jpg 

./file2 2.jpg 
```
Which are four words for the command for to be assigned at $i --- by default the shell treats spaces and newlines in the same way when expanding.

You can circumvent this changing the IFS char.

Your first line could look like:
```
IFS=$'

' find $DIRECTORY -type f -name *.jpg | while read -r imgfile; do
```

you are feeding the for loop with a single file name, so you should say:
```
rename -f 's/ /_/g' "$imgfile"
```
otherwise *.jpg is expanded in the current directory, and not in $DIRECTORY (and note the quotes --- given that $imgfile is going to have spaces in it).

even then, if $DIRECTORY has some path component with spaces in it, the rename will fail (there will be intermediate directories that do not exist).

suggestion (keeping it simple):

DIRECTORY="/foo/bar"

cd $DIRECTORY

rename -f 's/ /_/g' *.jpg

doesn't do what you want?

Added: my script (created ages ago, when there was no rename in Unix), is this --- it will remove spaces and tab in all files in current dir that have them in the name:

# 

ls -1  | grep -E " |	" | while read i; do

    a=`echo $i | tr " 	" "__"`

    mv -v "$i" $a

done

Added++: this link I found researching this answer is excellent.