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Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 10:22:19 -0800 (PST)
From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com>
Message-Id: <199812151822.KAA08906@pau-amma.whistle.com>
To: empey@integral.on.ca, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Two Questions
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>Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 23:23:59 -0500
>From: David Empey <empey@integral.on.ca>

>First, I need to be able to change the extension on a large number of files
>in a directory  from *.txt to *.ltr, but I cannot seem to get the mv (or
>the cp and rm) commands to do the job.  Is there something easier to do
>than renaming the files one by one?

As someone else pointed out, there are shell-specific ways to implement
looping constructs to accomplish such things.

Another approach (that I use about as often) is to fire up "vi" on a
nonexistent file, then use combinations of shell escapes and regex
substitutions to fabricate a list of the commands that I would want to
be executed, then enter a sequence to feed the current edit buffer to
the shell.

For example:

	cd /some/directory
	vi foo
	[within vi, now....]
		!!ls *.txt
		:%s/^\(.*\).txt/mv \1.txt \1.ltr/
		[review the list of commands....]
		1G!Gsh
		:q!
	[all done....]

david
-- 
David Wolfskill		UNIX System Administrator
dhw@whistle.com		voice: (650) 577-7158	pager: (650) 371-4621

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