Rename All Files Folders Specified Pattern

find . -depth -name '*_*' -execdir bash -c 'for f; do mv "$f" "${f//_/-}"; done' bash {} +

This command uses a for loop within the execdir option to iterate over the files and directories found by find and performs the renaming using the mv command.

Here’s a breakdown of the command:

• find .: Searches for files and directories in the current directory and its subdirectories.
• -depth: Processes the directory contents before the directory itself.
• -name '*_*': Specifies the pattern for filenames and directory names containing underscores.

• -execdir bash -c 'for f; do mv "$f" "${f//_/-}"; done' _whatever_ {} +: For each batch of files or directories found, it executes a bash command that uses a for loop to iterate over the items and rename them using the mv command.

  • Note: The _whatever_ is needed because without it bash with the -c option will ignore the first result of the find command in {}.
  • From the man page for bash:

    -c string
    If the -c option is present, then commands are read from string. If there are arguments after the string, they are assigned to the positional parameters, starting with $0.
    

  • The -c flag in bash will execute the command string with the parameters starting from $1 and not $0, as $0 is the name of the script and not the file-paths being sent to the bash '<command string>'.
  • Hence, we fill the $0 parameter with a dummy argument. It is typically set to bash or _ for clarity.
  • Study the outputs of these commands to see the difference.
    • find . -name '*.md' -execdir bash -c 'echo "$@"' _ {} +
    • find . -name '*.md' -execdir bash -c 'echo "$0"' _ {} +
    • find . -name '*.md' -execdir bash -c 'echo "$@"' {} +
    • find . -name '*.md' -execdir bash -c 'echo "$1"' _ {} +
    • find . -name '*.md' -execdir bash -c 'echo "$1"' {} +

  See this stackoverflow answer and another stackoverflow answer for further clarification.