Bash - finding files with spaces and rename with sed [duplicate] - linux

Question

This question already has answers here:
Recursively rename files using find and sed
(20 answers)
Closed 9 years ago.
I have been trying to write a script to rename all files that contain a space and replace the space with a dash.
Example: "Hey Bob.txt" to "Hey-Bob.txt"
When I used a for-loop, it just split up the file name at the space, so "Hey Bob.txt" gave separate argument like "Hey" and "Bob.txt".
I tried the following script but it keeps hanging on me.
#!/bin/bash
find / -name '* *' -exec mv {} $(echo {} | sed 's/ /-g')\;

Answer 1

Building off OP's idea:
find ${PATH_TO_FILES} -name '* *' -exec bash -c 'eval $(echo mv -v \"{}\" $(echo {} | sed "s/ /-/g"))' \;
NOTE: need to specify the PATH_TO_FILES variable
EDIT: BroSlow pointed out need to consider directory structure:
find ${PATH_TO_FILES} -name '* *' -exec bash -c 'DIR=$(dirname "{}" | sed "s/ /-/g" ); BASE=$(basename "{}"); echo mv -v \"$DIR/$BASE\" \"$DIR/$(echo $BASE | sed "s/ /-/g")\"' \; > rename-script.sh ; sh rename-script.sh

Answer 2

Another way:
find . -name "* *" -type f |while read file
do
new=${file// /}
mv "${file}" $new
done

Answer 3

Not one line, but avoids sed and should work just as well if you're going to be using it for a script anyway. (replace the mv with an echo if you want to test)
In bash 4+
#!/bin/bash
shopt -s globstar
for file in **/*; do
filename="${file##*/}"
if [[ -f $file && $filename == *" "* ]]; then
onespace=$(echo $filename)
dir="${file%/*}"
[[ ! -f "$dir/${onespace// /-}" ]] && mv "$file" "$dir/${onespace// /-}" || echo "$dir/${onespace// /-} already exists, so not moving $file" 1>&2
fi
done
Older bash
#!/bin/bash
find . -type f -print0 | while read -r -d '' file; do
filename="${file##*/}"
if [[ -f $file && $filename == *" "* ]]; then
onespace=$(echo $filename)
dir="${file%/*}"
[[ ! -f "$dir/${onespace// /-}" ]] && mv "$file" "$dir/${onespace// /-}" || echo "$dir/${onespace// /-} already exists, so not moving $file" 1>&2
fi
done
Explanation of algorithm
**/* This recursively lists all files in the current directory (** technically does it but /* is added at the end so it doesn't list the directory itself)
${file##*/} Will search for the longest pattern of */ in file and remove it from the string. e.g. /foo/bar/test.txt gets printed as test.txt
$(echo $filename) Without quoting echo will truncate spaces to one, making them easier to replace with one - for any number of spaces
${file%/*} Remove everything after and including the last /, e.g. /foo/bar/test.txt prints /foo/bar
mv "$file" ${onespace// /-} replace every space in our filename with - (we check if the hyphened version exists before hand and if it does echo that it failed to stderr, note && is processed before || in bash)
find . -type f -print0 | while read -r -d '' file This is used to avoid break up strings with spaces in them by setting a delimiter and not processing \
Sample Output
$ tree
.
├── bar
│   ├── some dir
│   │   ├── some-name-without-space1.pdf
│   │   ├── some name with space1.pdf
│   ├── some-name-without-space1.pdf
│   ├── some name with space1.pdf
│   └── some-name-with-space1.pdf
└── space.sh
$ ./space.sh
bar/some-name-with-space1.pdf already exists, so not moving bar/some name with space1.pdf
$ tree
.
├── bar
│   ├── some dir
│   │   ├── some-name-without-space1.pdf
│   │   ├── some-name-with-space1.pdf
│   ├── some-name-without-space1.pdf
│   ├── some name with space1.pdf
│   └── some-name-with-space1.pdf
└── space.sh