'rename' on files with apostrophes

rename -n '/.*(\d\d).jpg/Foo's Excellent Photo - $1.jpg/' # fails due to end of string rename -n '/.*(\d\d).jpg/Foo\'s Excellent Photo - $1.jpg/' # fails due to end of string rename -n "/.*(\d\d).jpg/Foo's Excellent Photo - $1.jpg/" # fails due to shell expansion

Answers

Your last variant is the correct one to use single inside double quotes -- but you have to escape also the $1 otherwise the shell will expand it:
```
"/.*(\d\d).jpg/Foo's Excellent Photo - \$1.jpg/"
```
However, I still get the error
```
Bareword found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "/.*(\d\d).jpg/Foo's"
    (Missing operator before Foo's?)
syntax error at (eval 1) line 1, near "/.*(\d\d).jpg/Foo's Excellent "
```
But this is not because of wrong quoting, but because perl-rename expects a perl regex. And you obviously want to search and replace, so use s/.../.../, not only /.../.../.

So, summing up, this command works flawlessly:

$ rename -n  "s/.*(\d\d).jpg/Foo's Excellent Photo - \$1.jpg/" *
PIC44.jpg renamed as Foo's Excellent Photo - 44.jpg
PIC45.jpg renamed as Foo's Excellent Photo - 45.jpg

mpy

Posted 2013-10-26T03:48:59.100

Reputation: 20 866

Thanks! I was using s///, but forgot to put it in my question. – nomen – 2013-10-26T16:38:57.697

What version of rename are you using? None of my research suggests using regexp type transformations. Also, your regexp suggests the name with the apostrophe is what you're converting ~to.~ Is that mandatory? Can you go without the apostrophe? – dafydd – 2013-10-26T04:17:01.287

It's the Perl rename utility, which is packaged for Debian/Ubuntu. See: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14327613/rename-multiple-files-from-command-line for an example. Keeping the apostrophe is the point of the question.

– nomen – 2013-10-26T04:21:20.460