Transforming File Name Characters

rfleisch has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello All

I need some guidance. I need to scan a folder looking at each name and folder name recursively and REMOVE special characters from those file names and folder names. I see these main tasks to do. 1. Start a directory read and retrieve an item. 2. Translate out the "special characters" to an underscore. 3. Rename the item to the new translated name. 4. If the item is a folder set it as the folder name and repeat recursively.

I need help with the translating part and the renaming part. Is renaming a folder the same as renaming a file?

Thank you - Ray Fleischmann

Comment on Transforming File Name Characters

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Re: Transforming File Name Characters by choroba (Cardinal) on Mar 11, 2013 at 17:15 UTC
Yes, renaming a directory should be the same as renaming a file. What do you mean by "special characters"? لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ	[reply]
Re^2: Transforming File Name Characters by rfleisch (Initiate) on Mar 11, 2013 at 18:30 UTC
We need to remove all / \ } { & $ # @ ~ ` pretty much anything that is NOT a letter or a number.	[reply]
Re^3: Transforming File Name Characters by choroba (Cardinal) on Mar 11, 2013 at 21:24 UTC
You can try something along the following lines: `fixdir('d'); sub fixdir { my $dir = shift; opendir my $DH, $dir or die "$dir: $!"; while (my $f = readdir $DH) { next if grep $_ eq $f, qw/. ../; (my $new = $f) =~ s/[^a-zA-Z0-9_.]/_/g; die "$f: $new already exists.\n" if -e "$dir/$new" and $new ne + $f; print STDERR "Renaming: $f -> $new\n"; rename "$dir/$f", "$dir/$new"; fixdir("$dir/$new") if -d "$dir/$new"; } }` [download] لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: Transforming File Name Characters by rfleisch (Initiate) on Mar 12, 2013 at 12:10 UTC
Re^4: Transforming File Name Characters by rfleisch (Initiate) on Mar 14, 2013 at 17:53 UTC
Re^5: Transforming File Name Characters by choroba (Cardinal) on Mar 14, 2013 at 18:06 UTC
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Re^4: REVISED - Transforming File Name Characters by rfleisch (Initiate) on Mar 14, 2013 at 19:24 UTC
Re^5: REVISED - Transforming File Name Characters by choroba (Cardinal) on Mar 14, 2013 at 19:54 UTC
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Re: Transforming File Name Characters by Kenosis (Priest) on Mar 11, 2013 at 19:26 UTC
What happens if, upon getting ready to rename a file or folder, the new name already exists? For example: `Old New --- --- file@{%.txt file___.txt file%{@.txt file___.txt` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Transforming File Name Characters by rfleisch (Initiate) on Mar 12, 2013 at 12:13 UTC
Thanks I had NOT thought of that. I'm sure that the second rename will just fail and leave the file name unchanged. I'll display a message to look for it. Thank You For this "got-cha" :-)	[reply]