rename using regexpr - is it possible?

[Fergus Daly]

-----Original Message-----
From: Eliot Moss <moss@cs.umass.edu> 
Sent: 24 October 2021 17:11
To: Fergus Daly <fergusd84@outlook.com>; 'cygwin@cygwin.com' <cygwin@cygwin.com>
Subject: Re: rename using regexpr - is it possible?

On 10/24/2021 4:55 PM, Fergus Daly wrote:
>>> I might be wrong but:
>>> The Cygwin implementation of rename seems completely different from "the" (my) Linux version.
>>> (Almost unique? Otherwise the matching in Cygwin of all syntax - 
>>> vocab, switches, outcomes - to Linux, seems almost perfect.) Can I 
>>> rename a set of files *.d (say) as filename.d -> XXfilename.d?
>>> In Linux this would be achieved by
>>> $ rename 's/^/XX/g' ./*.d
>>> whereas in Cygwin
>>> $ rename ^ XX *.d
>>> (and all similar attempts) fails.
>>> Thank you.
> 
>> You're confusing perl-rename with util-linu rename.
>> The former, which seems to be what you want, can be installed using 
>> cpan (install File::Rename), assuming you have perl installed.
>> It will put its rename command in /usr/local/bin, presumably taking precedence over the util-linux one in /usr/bin.
>> It further seems that "normally" these two have different names, like 
>> rename.ul and prename, and /etc/alternatives is used to set up the rename command.
>> This required some web searching to determine ...
>> Cheers - Eliot
> 
> Perfect. Worked like a dream.
> All in place, and naming managed.
> Thanks so much.

No problem - learned something myself!  EM

PS When I said .. ..
> Perfect. Worked like a dream
.. .. I had only tried things in Cygwin32. The cpan step failed in Cygwin64 so
I couldn't follow up with the install File::Rename command.
(I'm quite surprised. Here, the Cygwin32 and Cygwin64 setups are identical
in that, whilst incomplete i.e. not "Full", they are constructed using the identical
C:> setup -P {long list of packages separated by commas}
command at the Windows prompt. Up to now they have behaved identically.
Solved by copying across from Cygwin32 to Cygwin64 all the newly "rename-augmented"
files under /usr/local/bin/, /usr/local/lib/, /usr/local/man/, and not forgetting the
augmented file /etc/bash.bashrc containing the 4 export perl* lines.

Seems to work so far. But if I hadn't also got Cygwin32, I would have been stuck with the
cpan failure under Cygwin64. I must have missed something for Cygwin64 .. .. but Goodness
knows what.