asked on

Script Error: mv: invalid option --1

The script changes the extention on file names. It is as follows:

for i in 'ls *.aaa | cut -f1 -d '; do
mv $i.aaa $i.bbb;
done

getting an error when run

mv: invalid option --1

brettmjohnson

Your cut command delimiter is wrong. I think you wanted -d .
Your script will also fail if a filename contains spaces or multiple
filename extensions.

I recently wrote this script for a client that was transitioning from
Linux to Mac OS X (which lacks the Linux 'rename' command):

#!/bin/bash
# This Bash shell script emulates the linux 'rename (1)' command
# The "usage" man page help was shamelessly stolen from Linux.
# 04 Aug 2004 Brett Johnson

# Must have at least three args: fromtext, totext, file...
if [ $# -lt 3 ] ; then
cat <<END
NAME
rename - bulk rename files

SYNOPSIS
rename fromtext totext files...

DESCRIPTION
rename will rename the specified files by replacing the
first occurrence of fromtext in their name with totext.

For example, given the files foo1, ..., foo9, foo10, ..., foo278,
the commands

rename foo foo0 foo?
rename foo foo0 foo??

will turn them into foo001, ..., foo009, foo010, ..., foo278.

And

rename .htm .html *.htm

will fix the extension of your html files.

END

else
fromtext=$1
totext=$2
shift 2

for f in "$@" ; do mv $f ${f/$fromtext/$totext} ; done
fi

DBDevOne

ASKER

Thanks for teh comment. This is my first script. There are no spaces or multiple extentions. How would I modify my script to eliminate the error?

jlevie

A better way would be:

for f in *.aaa; do
mv $f `basename $f .aaa`.bbb
done

DBDevOne

ASKER

What is basename? Can you list and example?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

jlevie

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