patrename - a pattern-based file bulk rename utility.

Install

npm install -g patrename

Usage

patrename [-y|--dryRun] <source_path_pattern> [<replace_pattern>]

patrename utilizes Javascript regular expressions to match files - you can test to see how the regular expression matches by not supplying the <replace_pattern>:

$ patrename 'test_(\d+).png' # matches all files in the current directory that matches the expression. 
matched files: 
[ 'test_01.png',
  'test_02.png',
  ...
]
supply replacement pattern to rename them.

-y or --dryRun will allow you to test out your replacement pattern without actually rename the files.

The replacement pattern is done as a CoffeeScript interpolated string, with the matched pattern named as $1, $2, $3, etc.

For example, if the goal is to strip the test_ prefix from the file name, we just supply #{$1}.png as the replacement string.

$ patrename 'test_(\d+).png' '#{$1}.png'

One thing to keep in mind is that in shells that use $ as variable prefixes, double quote strings will require an escape with \. I.e.,

'#{$1}.png'

or

"#{\$1}.png"

A couple of utility functions are supplied - incr will increment the number, and descr will decrement the number.

$ patrename 'test_(\d+).png' '#{incr($1)}.png'
# will rename test_1.png to 2.png, etc.