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I have created a script in /home/prashast directory. I've created another directory inside /home/prashast named TestDirectory. I've multiple files inside /home/prashast/TestDirectory. While running a script from /home/prashast directory its not effecting the files in /home/prashast/TestDirectory.

#!/bin/bash
for f in $(ls /home/prashast/TestDirectory/); do
     mv "$f.txt" "$f.text";
done
αғsнιη
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Prashast
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  • When i am writing echo $f i am able to see all the files in the directory but i could not rename the files inside the directory. and getting the error "mv: cannot stat ‘file1.txt.txt’: No such file or directory" – Prashast Aug 13 '17 at 07:25

1 Answers1

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Don't parse ls result, use this code instead.

for f in /home/prashast/TestDirectory/*; do
    echo mv "$f" "${f%.*}.text";
done

The ${f%.*} that we used is a shell parameter expansion expression (cut-up-to-first-suffix); stripping start from end to the begging of filename till first . seen.

Read chapter on Bash shell parameter expansion for more.

αғsнιη
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  • Could you please explain ${f%%.*} – Prashast Aug 13 '17 at 08:05
  • Is there any benefit to quoting the path in this? Like: for f in "/home/prashast/TestDirectory/*" I always want to do it thinking it's going to help with special characters in the filenames but I don't see many people do that so I'm guessing there is no real benefit to it? – jesse_b Aug 13 '17 at 13:15
  • for me is difficult to answer your this question, but basically as my experience mostly for loop is using for one level of path and only including files to process, so * can do the job for any matching file and if it's two or more levels can be /*/* in path and inside for... can decide the other processes. – αғsнιη Aug 13 '17 at 13:36