如何使用-exec查找和重命名所有文件

Question

I want to rename all files which end on ".mp4" in such way that instead of white spaces to contain underscores. Example:

Original file -> test 1.mp4
Renamed file -> test_1.mp4

I was trying with:

find . -iname "*.mp4"  -exec mv {} $(echo '{}' | tr " " "_") \;

But I got only:

mv: ‘./test 1.mp4’ and ‘./test 1.mp4’ are the same file

It seems that my pipe is not working.I would appreciate all ideas.

Answer 1

I'd look into using the rename command, assuming your distribution provides it. In Debian: https://packages.debian.org/rename

If you don't need to search in subdirectories:

rename 's/\\ /_/' *.mp4

If you do:

find . -iname "*.mp4" -execdir rename 's/\\ /_/' {} \\;

If multiple spaces must be replaced, the search/replace expression becomes 's/\\ /_/g'

If you really want to keep your syntax/approach, see this very similar question: find -exec with multiple commands

Answer 2

It seems that the only way to do it so far is via "rename" command.

Here is the command that worked:

find /tmp/test/ -iname "*.mp4" -exec rename " " "_" "{}" \;