Unix renaming file

Directories provide a way to organize files, allowing you to group related files together. Directories are analogous to Macintosh and Windows folders. Each file and directory has a name. Within a directory, each item that is, each file or directory must have a unique name, but items with the same name may exist in more than one directory. A directory may have the same name as one of the items it contains.

File and directory names may be up to characters long. Names may use almost any character except a space. Some characters have special meanings to Unix. It is best to avoid using these characters in file names:. Unix is case-sensitive. Terminate file entry by typing Control-d on a line by itself.

Hold down the Control key and type d. On your screen, you will see:. To make a duplicate copy of a file, use the command cp. For example, to create an exact copy of the file called firstfile, you would type:. This results in two files with different names, each containing the same information.

The cp command works by overwriting information. If you create a different file called thirdfile and then type the following command:. Unix does not have a command specifically for renaming files. Instead, the mv command is used both to change the name of a file and to move a file into a different directory.

To change the name of a file, use the following command format where thirdfile and file3 are sample file names :. This command results in the complete removal of thirdfile , but a new file called file3 contains the previous contents of thirdfile.

Like cp, the mv command also overwrites existing files. For example, if you have two files, fourthfile and secondfile, and you type the command.

As a result, fourthfile is renamed secondfile , but in the process secondfile is deleted. You may remove more than one file at a time by specifying a list of files to be deleted. For example,. Type y or yes to remove a file; type n or no to leave it intact.

The directory that you create will be a subdirectory within your current directory. For details on how to navigate directories and display the files and directories they contain, see List Contents and Navigate Unix Directories. The mv and cp commands can be used to put files into a directory.

Assume that you want to place some files from your current directory into a newly created directory called project1. The command. There will now be two copies of chapter1 , one in the current directory and one in project1. You can also use the mv command to rename and move directories. When you type the command. If directory project2 already existed before the mv command was issued,.

You can use the cp command to create a duplicate copy of a directory and its contents. Still, r3mainer's critizism holds: this works only if all the filenames are guaranteed to be 8 characters long. Instead you can use parameter substitution to get what you want:. Since the pattern is ".

Then a single ". Additionally, notice that you shouldn't use "for-loops" for this kind of activity. How are we doing? Please help us improve Stack Overflow. Take our short survey. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams?

Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. Asked 10 days ago. Active 9 days ago. Viewed 50 times. Improve this question. Riya Riya 11 1 1 bronze badge. I suppose this is not a unix question, but a ksh question? Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google.