brn2

brn2 is a fork of brn, a command line tool used to easily mass-rename files in your preferred text editor.

Usage

$ brn2 --help
usage: brn2 [OPTIONS] -- <file1> <file2> ...
usage: brn2 [OPTIONS] -f <filename>
Rename filenames based on provided arguments.

Options:
  -h, --help    : Display this help message and exit.
  -q, --quiet   : Quiet mode; suppress output messages.
  -v, --verbose : Verbose mode (default); output messages.
  -c, --check   : Check if original file names exist.
  -s, --sort    : Disable sorting of original list.
  -F, --fatal   : Exit on first renaming error.
  -i, --implict : Rename files not given in the list of files to rename.
  -e, --explict : Only rename files given in the list of files to rename (default).

Arguments:
  No arguments             : Rename filenames in the current working directory.
  1 or more arguments      : Rename filenames passed as arguments.
  -f <file>, --file=<file> : Rename filenames listed in this argument.

brn2 will open the filenames in your text editor of choice. You can then edit the filenames in the buffer and the changes will take place when you save and exit.

• No arguments: filenames in current working directory
• Argument supplied to -f: filenames listed in this argument
• 2 or more arguments: filenames passed as arguments

Notes

• By default it uses $EDITOR and if that is not set, it defaults to vim.
• It will not work for more than 2^32 renames at once.
• It will not work for filenames longer than PATH_MAX (typically 4096) bytes.
• Newlines in filenames are not allowed.
• Filenames listed in <filename> or given as arguments which do not correpond to existing files will generate errors while renaming.
• Filenames that contain only dots and slashes are ignored.
• Filenames are normalized:
  • ./ at beginning of filenames are removed.
  • consecutive slashes (/) are bundled together.
  • if possible, trailing slash is added to denote directories
• Repeated filenames in <filename> or repeated arguments are removed.
• It can handle swapping names. It uses GNU/Linux's renameat2 system call to atomically swap the names of two files which means no temporary files are made either (only on GNU/Linux; on other operating systems, swapping files will safely fail without renaming).
  • By default, files which were not specified in the rename list will be unaffected. If you try to rename a to b, but b was not specified in the rename list, this rename won't happen. Supply the --implict command line option to force this swap, then a will become b and b will become a.
• If the exact number of filenames isn't provided or if some filenames are repeated, the user will be asked to fix the rename buffer or exit.
• Renaming millions or billions of files can be slow. Disabling sorting (-s option) and printing (-q option) might help a bit.

Install

AUR

$ yay -S brn2-git

Manual

$ git clone https://github.com/lucas-mior/brn2
$ cd brn2
$ ./build.sh
$ sudo ./build.sh install

Examples

• Find and rename jpg files in quiet mode (recursively, using find):

$ find . -iname "*.jpg" > rename
$ brn2 --quiet --file rename

• Rename jpg files in current working directory:

$ brn2 *.jpg

• Rename all files in current working directory:

$ brn2

• Rename all files in current working directory without sorting:

$ brn2 -s

• Rename files a, b, and c, allowing for swapping with other files which already exist.

$ brn2 -i a b c

Changes over original brn

• Option to rename files listed in file or passed as arguments.
  • By default, won't swap files which were not specified in the rename list.
• Print renamed files.
• Faster algorithm to check for duplicated filenames.
• Option to check if original files exist.

License

brn2 is licensed under the GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.