SHIRT: SHIRT Handles Intense Renaming Tasks

SHIRT is a command-line tool for renaming files by replacing strings in their filenames. It provides a convenient and efficient way to handle bulk renaming tasks, with support for file patterns, recursion, and optional backup of the original files.

Features (updated 2024-01-18)

• (v0.2.0rc1) Remove punctuation from filenames
• (v0.2.0rc1) Replace spaces with underscores
• Replace one or multiple strings in filenames
• Match files by file pattern
• Invert file pattern matching
• Recurse through subdirectories
• Dry-run mode to preview changes before renaming
• Backup original files before renaming

Installation

1. Ensure you have Python 3.6 or later installed.
2. Install the required libraries: pip install click rich
3. Download the shirt.py script and make it executable: chmod +x shirt.py
4. Rename the script to shirt without the .py extension: mv shirt.py shirt
5. Move the shirt script to a directory in your PATH (e.g., /usr/local/bin or ~/.local/bin):

sudo mv shirt /usr/local/bin/  # or
mv shirt ~/.local/bin/

Ensure that the chosen directory is in your PATH. You can check your PATH by running echo $PATH.

You can now use the shirt command from anywhere in your filesystem without needing to prepend it with python.

Usage

shirt [OPTIONS] STRINGS... REPLACEMENT

Options

• -r, --recursive: Search for files recursively in subdirectories.
• -p, --pattern PATTERN: A file pattern to match against filenames (e.g., *.txt). (default: *)
• -i, --invert-match: Act on files that do not match the given pattern.
• -d, --dry-run: Show the changes that would be made, without renaming any files.
• -b, --backup: Backup files before renaming.
• -g, --remove-punctuation: Replaces need for pair of strings. Remove punctuation from filenames.
• -s, --space-to-underscore: Only works with --remove-punctuation. Replace spaces with underscores.

Examples

• Replace "old" with "new" in all filenames:

shirt "old" "new"

• Replace "old1" and "old2" with "new" in all .txt files:

shirt "old1" "old2" "new" -p "*.txt"

• Remove punctuation and replace spaces with underscores.

shirt --remove-punctuation --space-to-underscore

# Removes the following characters ?.'";:,<>[]{}\|+'=-)(*&^%$\`#@!~+ _
# The flag --space-to-underscore requires --remove-punctuation

• Replace "old" with "new" in filenames that do not match the pattern *123*:

shirt "old" "new" -p "*123*" -i

• Replace "old" with "new" in filenames, recursing through subdirectories:

shirt "old" "new" -r

• Preview changes without renaming any files:

shirt "old" "new" -d

• Backup original files before renaming:

shirt "old" "new" -b

Roadmap

• One-click installation script.
• Dry-run mode to preview the changes without actually renaming the files.
• Auto-detection and handling of character encoding in filenames (e.g., UTF-8, UTF-16, ISO-8859-1) to ensure proper renaming across different systems and platforms.
• Remove punctuation with one flag
• Logging support, including a log file with detailed information about the renaming process and any encountered issues.
• Undo functionality to revert the last renaming operation.
• Case sensitivity option for matching file patterns and replacing strings.
• Regular expression support for more advanced search and replace patterns.
• Ability to rename directories as well as files.
• Integration with version control systems like Git, to automatically stage changes or create a commit after renaming.
• File attribute preservation (e.g., timestamps, permissions) during the renaming process.
• Rename confirmation prompt before applying changes, especially for large numbers of files or when using complex patterns.

License

MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.