[ILUG] How do I mv a bunch of files w/ a RE?

[Dave Neary]

David Golden wrote:
> 
> Braun Brelin wrote:
> 
> >Hi folks,
> >
> >I have a bunch of files in a directory of the following format:
> >
> >
> >a001.html
> >a002.html
> >a003.html
> >
> >I'd like to find a single 'mv' command to change these files from axxx.html
> >to bxxx.html.
> >
> >Obviously, commands like 'mv a???.html b???.html' don't work.
> >I'd prefer a single line shell command rather than some sort of foreach if
> >possible.
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> if you have a load of files called a1.html, a2.html, a3.html, etc.,
> the above command will change them all to b1.html, etc.
> Note that the s/^a/b/ is regular-expression-ese,
> and is a whole topic in itself... the s means "switch"
> ^a means "an 'a' character at the start of the input"
> and b is, well, b...

For a shell solution, 
for i in a*.html; do
  mv $i b${i#a};
done

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
David Neary,               E-Mail dave.neary at palamon.ie
Palamon Technologies Ltd.  Phone +353-1-634-5059