How to remove spaces at the end of folder names?

Question

I would like to delete the spaces at the end of my folder names.

I have a folder called "Project1 " in which I have another folder called "Exercise1 ".

I want to use a script to delete the spaces at the end and only at the end.
I don't know if I have expressed myself correctly.

Thank you in advance, have a nice evening.

I typed the command /bin/ls -l | od -c

root@debian:~$ /bin/ls -l | od -c
0000000   t   o   t   a   l       3   2  \n   d   r   w   x   r   -   x
0000020   r   -   x       2       k   a   b   i   a       k   a   b   i
0000040   a       4   0   9   6       j   u   i   l   .       2   0    
0000060   1   0   :   2   6       B   u   r   e   a   u  \n   d   r   w
0000100   x   r   -   x   r   -   x       7       k   a   b   i   a    
0000120   k   a   b   i   a       4   0   9   6       j   u   i   l   .
0000140       2   2       1   7   :   4   6       D   o   c   u   m   e
0000160   n   t   s  \n   d   r   w   x   r   -   x   r   -   x       2
0000200       k   a   b   i   a       k   a   b   i   a       4   0   9
0000220   6       j   u   i   l   .       2   2       1   9   :   2   6
0000240       I   m   a   g   e   s  \n   d   r   w   x   r   -   x   r
0000260   -   x       2       k   a   b   i   a       k   a   b   i   a
0000300       4   0   9   6       j   u   i   l   .       2   0       1
0000320   0   :   2   6       M   o   d 303 250   l   e   s  \n   d   r
0000340   w   x   r   -   x   r   -   x       2       k   a   b   i   a
0000360       k   a   b   i   a       4   0   9   6       j   u   i   l
0000400   .       2   0       1   0   :   2   6       M   u   s   i   q
0000420   u   e  \n   d   r   w   x   r   -   x   r   -   x       2    
0000440   k   a   b   i   a       k   a   b   i   a       4   0   9   6
0000460       j   u   i   l   .       2   0       1   0   :   2   6    
0000500   P   u   b   l   i   c  \n   d   r   w   x   r   -   x   r   -
0000520   x       2       k   a   b   i   a       k   a   b   i   a    
0000540   4   0   9   6       j   u   i   l   .       2   0       1   0
0000560   :   2   6       T 303 251   l 303 251   c   h   a   r   g   e
0000600   m   e   n   t   s  \n   d   r   w   x   r   -   x   r   -   x
0000620       2       k   a   b   i   a       k   a   b   i   a       4
0000640   0   9   6       j   u   i   l   .       2   0       1   0   :
0000660   2   6       V   i   d 303 251   o   s  \n
0000673

Answer 1

With zsh:

autoload zmv # best in ~/.zshrc
zmv -n '**/*[[:space:]]' '${f%%[[:space:]]#}'

(remove -n for dry-run when happy)

Would remove trailing whitespace characters from the end of every non hidden file or directory. Add (#q/) to the pattern argument if you want to restrict to directories only. Or (#qD) to also process hidden file.

POSIXly, you can do something approaching with:

LC_ALL=C find . -depth -name '*[[:space:]]' -exec sh -x -c '
  for f do
    : mv -i "$f" "${f%"${f##*[![:space:]]}"}"
  done' sh {} +

(remove -x and : when happy).

That one is limited to ASCII whitespace characters.

Answer 2

You can do this using a Bash script.

Just create a script and copy this code in it, put it in the top directory in which the "bad named directories" are located, then execute:

#!/bin/bash
find all directory names that end with space:
while find "$(pwd)" -type d |grep  -q ' $'
do
    # select one and store its name in DIR variable
    DIR=$(find "$(pwd)" -type d | grep ' $'|head -1)
# remove the last character (which is space) from that 
# name and save it to NEW_DIR variable
NEW_DIR=${DIR%?}

# rename the directory
mv "$DIR" "$NEW_DIR"

done

As you can see in this screenshot, there were directories which had similar conditions in "test2" directory, and the script named "space.sh" is also located in "test2". After executing the script, directories have been renamed as we desired:

Answer 3

The pathlib module in python3 has all the wherewithal to walk the hierarchy , detect the said files, and rename them.

python3 -c 'import pathlib
for p in iter(pathlib.Path(".").rglob("*[ \t]")):
  p.rename("/".join([str(p.parent),p.name.rstrip()]))'

Based on the kinds of filenames present in your file hierarchy, we use the following piece of python to recursively traverse the tree depth first is the default action . It looks for any non-ASCII names and renames by replacing he nonASCII char. with an "X". No checks are made before renaming whether the new name already exists.

python3 - <<\eof
import pathlib, re
for p in iter(pathlib.Path('.').rglob('*[! -~]*')):
  foo = p.name
  for m in re.finditer(r"[^ -~]",p.name):
    foo = foo[:m.start()] + "X" + foo[m.end():]
  p.rename("/".join([str(p.parent),foo]))
eof

Answer 4

Using Perl's rename.

I didn't write this but I use it a lot. Transferring video files from a Windows box to my Linux box puts extra white spaces at the end of directory names and this command removes them whether it's a single white space or multiple white spaces at the end of folder and file names.

Remove empty spaces at the end of directory / file names in the current directory

does a dry run

rename -n 's/ *$//' ./* 

actual run

rename 's/ *$//' ./*