When renaming lots of files you usually resort to your typical for f in … command line with a sed command or similar included, or perhaps you use rename(1) but sometimes it’s just easier if you can use your normal editor. In my case this is vim, where I can then use various nice things such as changes on blocks, or just ad hoc changes to the file names. To accomplish this in an easy way I use an old quick hack; which is the following script that I’ve named viren:

#!/bin/sh

# viren
# Rename files using an editor (vim in this case)

FNEW=`mktemp -t`
FORIG=`mktemp -t`
FCMDS=`mktemp -t`
for i in $*
do
        echo "\"$i\"" >> $FORIG
done
cat $FORIG > $FNEW

vim $FNEW

wcn=`wc -l $FNEW | cut -d\  -f1`
wco=`wc -l $FORIG | cut -d\  -f1`

# go ahead if the line count is the same
if [ $wcn -eq $wco ]
then
        paste $FORIG $FNEW | sed -e 's/^/mv /g' > $FCMDS
        source $FCMDS
        echo Renamed/moved files
else
        echo Aborted rename/move
fi

rm $FNEW $FORIG $FCMDS