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

$ rename
Usage: rename [-v] perlexpr [filenames]

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Has anyone fine-tuned an expression to tidy up shell unfriendly filenames with rename? eg. 
$ rename -v '$_=lc;s/[^\w.]+/_/g' *
The Pogues - Beer, Beer, Beer (Irish drinking song).mp3 renamed as the
+_pogues_beer_beer_beer_irish_drinking_song_.mp3

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This is a start, but I'd prefer the ' - ' to become '-', there's the trailing "_", and there's no doubt more problem cases to be found. Before I started trying to DWIM for 98% of cases I figured someone else is bound to have been there before me.

Anyone solved this already..?

Thanks,

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Re: Clean filenames with /usr/bin/rename
by thinker (Parson) on Jun 17, 2003 at 07:59 UTC
    Hi bsb,

    The following should rename all the files in the current directory in the fashion you wish. 
    perl -e 'for (<*>){ my $f= $_; tr/, -/_/s; rename $f, $_}'

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    I hope this helps
    thinker

    Update Whoops, forgot the lower case. Quick fix.
    perl -e 'for (<*>){ my $f= $_; tr/, -/_/s; tr/A-Z/a-z/; rename $f, $_}
+'

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      Thanks but the program already exists and it's in Perl: 
      $ head -n 4 `which rename`
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#
#  This script was developed by Robin Barker (Robin.Barker@npl.co.uk),
#  from Larry Wall's original script eg/rename from the perl source.

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      I just need a new improved expression that catches all stupid file names and converts them to something sensible. The original post does it ok, I'd hoped someone had a thoroughly tested expression ready to post.

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        Let me try it again. See sub sanitize for the matching pattern in various s///, in the referenced program, that i consider fit the mold of unholy names on unix. You could then round up all the matching regexen to create one regex for rename.

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Re: Clean filenames with /usr/bin/rename
by parv (Parson) on Jun 17, 2003 at 08:27 UTC
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Soln: Clean filenames with /usr/bin/rename
by bsb (Priest) on Jun 20, 2003 at 00:59 UTC
    Provisional solution, that is. 
    $ rename -v "\$_=lc;s/&/ and /g;y/()'/--/sd;s/(?:(\.)|(-)|[\W_])+/\$1|
+|\$2||'_'/ge"  *

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    Shell quoting is nasty. The unprotected perl expression is: 
    $_=lc;s/&/ and /g;y/()'/--/sd;s/(?:(\.)|(-)|[\W_])+/$1||$2||'_'/ge;

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    I took the '&' handling from here and parv's preferences for '.' then '-' then '_' when grouping but with my own (re)implementation. My test data was pretty minimal and I'd welcome improvements or even better test cases.

    Brad 

    my @f = (
    'Godspeed - Sunshine and Gasoline.mp3',
    'Pogues - Token Celtic Drinking Song.mp3',
    'The Pogues - Beer, Beer, Beer (Irish drinking song).mp3',
    'Hell\'s Ditch',
    'One&Two.mp3',
    'A!!  ...--B._._.C_-___-_D-._.-E',
);
                                                                      
+                          
for (@f) {
    print;
    $_=lc;s/&/ and /g;y/()'/--/sd;
    print;
    s/(?:(\.)|(-)|[\W_])+/$1||$2||'_'/ge;
    print;
}

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    Here's how I use it in the 'clean_name' script 
    #!/usr/bin/env perl

# I couldn't work out how to escape this for a shell alias
my $cmd = join '', split /\n/, <<'CMDS';
$_=lc;s/&/ and /g;
y/()'/--/sd;
s/(?:(\.)|(-)|[\W_])+/$1||$2||'_'/ge;
s/^[._-]//; s/[._-]$//;
CMDS

system('rename','-v',$cmd, @ARGV);

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