Rename files in powershell using regular expressions
Rename files in powershell using regular expressions
Invoking renamer.ps1 defines a global function renamer that allows selecting and renaming files using regular expressions. It is basically a wrapper to apply the Regex.Replace() function to filenames. It does not move files.
The default name for the function is renamer but you can change it to anything you’d like - just edit the source. I invoke the file from Profile.ps1 but that’s not required.
The interactive syntax is:
renamer source-regex target-regex
When used interactively it displays the changes it will make and prompts for confirmation (default).
It can be used in pipelines like this:
ls bruce*.c | renamer 'bruce(.*)\.c' 'sam$1.c'
WARNING: when used in pipelines it does not prompt for confirmation. If you’d like to see the results of a pipeline rename without actually making the changes use -test:
ls bruce*.c | renamer -test 'bruce(.*)\.c' 'sam$1.c'
You should notice the use of single quotes to prevent variable substitution by PowerShell. You can also use a backtick (`) to quote a single character. See http://www.regular-expressions.info/powershell.html for details. Of course, you can use it without regular expressions too.