There are a couple of ways you can replace a string in a file, and an example is using the mv command, but what if you want to replace multiple strings at once, then you might consider creating a loop, which loops through all the file in your target directory, and you then replace the string based on the condition you set.
That's one way, but the better and simpler way is using the rename command, and I wrote a script for just that:
#!/bin/bash
# Author: The_Devsrealm_Guy
# Website: https://devsrealm.com
# Script to replace/substitute multi occurrences of a string in files
# Last Edited: August 2020
read -p "Which directory do you want to execute the script? " dir_name
if [ -d $dir_name ] ; then
real_dir=$dir_name
read -p "Old string you want to replace? " string_old
read -p "New string you want to replace it with? " new_string
# Perform the rename operation
cd $real_dir && rename ''s/$string_old/$new_string/'' *
#Go back into the script directory
SCRIPT_DIR=$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")
cd $SCRIPT_DIR
echo
echo renaming completed
echo
ls $dir_name
else
echo "Incorrect directory, please point to an existing directory"
fi
return
Copy the script into a file, e.g renametool.sh, add permission bit to the script: chmod +x renametool.sh, and you then run the script by sourcing it using:. renametool.sh
This is my output:
user@server:~/bin$ . tester.sh
Which directory do you want to execute the script? /home/user/bin/backup
Old string you want to replace? .txt
New string you want to replace it with? .exe
renaming completed
book001.exe book011.exe book021.exe book031.exe book041.exe book051.exe book061.exe book071.exe book081.exe book091.exe
book002.exe book012.exe book022.exe book032.exe book042.exe book052.exe book062.exe book072.exe book082.exe book092.exe
book003.exe book013.exe book023.exe book033.exe book043.exe book053.exe book063.exe book073.exe book083.exe book093.exe
book004.exe book014.exe book024.exe book034.exe book044.exe book054.exe book064.exe book074.exe book084.exe book094.exe
book005.exe book015.exe book025.exe book035.exe book045.exe book055.exe book065.exe book075.exe book085.exe book095.exe
book006.exe book016.exe book026.exe book036.exe book046.exe book056.exe book066.exe book076.exe book086.exe book096.exe
book007.exe book017.exe book027.exe book037.exe book047.exe book057.exe book067.exe book077.exe book087.exe book097.exe
book008.exe book018.exe book028.exe book038.exe book048.exe book058.exe book068.exe book078.exe book088.exe book098.exe
book009.exe book019.exe book029.exe book039.exe book049.exe book059.exe book069.exe book079.exe book089.exe book099.exe
book010.exe book020.exe book030.exe book040.exe book050.exe book060.exe book070.exe book080.exe book090.exe book100.exe
Looks handy, I guess ;)