Re: RE question; how to insert a digit between const[a-z]*3 && inc[0-9]*3?

[kcott]

G'day taint,

Here's another way to do it:

$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E '
    my @files = qw{abc1.html abc12.html abc123.html abc1234.html};
    say for map {
        s/^(abc)(\d{1,3})(\.html)$/$1 . "0" x (4 - length $2) . $2 . $
+3/e; $_
    } @files;
'
abc0001.html
abc0012.html
abc0123.html
abc1234.html

Update: "... the files begin with the same 3 alpha characters ..." so \w{3} is far too generic: s/\w{3}/abc/

[taint]

Greetings Ken, and thanks for the reply.
This looks like a complete solution!
Given that all of the files end in .html, and begin with abc
I should be able to simply read in the entire directory.

opendir(DIR, $dirname) or die "can't opendir $dirname: $!";
while (defined($file = readdir(DIR))) {
# use your suggestion on "$dirname/$file"
}
closedir(DIR);

I'm still sorting it all out. But wanted to take the time to thank you
for your help.

Thanks again!

--chris

[kcott]

Given that context, you might want to try something like this technique (untested):

while (defined($file = readdir(DIR))) {
    next unless $file =~ /^(abc)(\d{1,3})(\.html)$/;
    rename "$dirname/$file" "$dirname/" . $1 . "0" x (4 - length $2) .
+ $2 . $3;
}

I'd also recommend that you try this with a print to ensure you're in the right directory and targetting the correct files before making thousands of changes; then change to rename. Some error checking/handling might also be useful.

[taint]

Greetings Ken, and thanks again!
Your example(s) both work exactly as you indicated they would.
Took me awhile to sort it all out. But I'm afraid I wasn't as clear, or as concise
as I could/should have been -- soory. :(
I had already performed a mas-rename on the files by cobbling a sh(1) script, with the
help of find(1), basename(1), cp(1), && rm(1) through a for loop.
This is what left me with the task of correcting the references to the files previous
names within the newly named files. This is where my request came in -- again, sorry for not better clarifying.
I tried to apply your logic to the task of reading the contents of the files
and applying it to their contents. But I guess I'm just not yet proficient enough in perl(1). :(
So I got anxious, and mostly conquered the abc100 - abc999.html's
via another sh(1) script

#!/bin/sh -

# fixem -- a simple stupid && inefficient shell script

for name in $(find . -type f -name '*.html' -maxdepth 1)

do
# sed(1) recognizing Extended RE(s)
    sed -Ef fixem.sed <$name >temp.txt
    mv temp.txt $name
done

rm -f temp.txt

fixem.sed

/abc([1-9][0-9][0-9])\.html/s/abc/abc0/g

While that shell script fixed most of the occurrences, it missed a few, and it
also didn't address abc1 - 99.html. So now I'm going to try and figure out how
to best attack/accomplish this same (il)logic in perl(1). :)

Any pointers/guidance/solutions still greatly appreciated. :)

Thanks again for everyones' time, and consideration.

--chris