[linux] How to replace spaces in file names using a bash script

Can anyone recommend a safe solution to recursively replace spaces with underscores in file and directory names starting from a given root directory? For example:

$ tree
.
|-- a dir
|   `-- file with spaces.txt
`-- b dir
    |-- another file with spaces.txt
    `-- yet another file with spaces.pdf

becomes:

$ tree
.
|-- a_dir
|   `-- file_with_spaces.txt
`-- b_dir
    |-- another_file_with_spaces.txt
    `-- yet_another_file_with_spaces.pdf

find . -depth -name '* *' \
| while IFS= read -r f ; do mv -i "$f" "$(dirname "$f")/$(basename "$f"|tr ' ' _)" ; done

failed to get it right at first, because I didn't think of directories.

This only finds files inside the current directory and renames them. I have this aliased.

find ./ -name "* *" -type f -d 1 | perl -ple '$file = $_; $file =~ s/\s+/_/g; rename($_, $file);

I found around this script, it may be interesting :)

 IFS=$'\n';for f in `find .`; do file=$(echo $f | tr [:blank:] '_'); [ -e $f ] && [ ! -e $file ] && mv "$f" $file;done;unset IFS

Here's a reasonably sized bash script solution

#!/bin/bash
(
IFS=$'\n'
    for y in $(ls $1)
      do
         mv $1/`echo $y | sed 's/ /\\ /g'` $1/`echo "$y" | sed 's/ /_/g'`
      done
)

you can use this:

    find . -name '* *' | while read fname 

do
        new_fname=`echo $fname | tr " " "_"`

        if [ -e $new_fname ]
        then
                echo "File $new_fname already exists. Not replacing $fname"
        else
                echo "Creating new file $new_fname to replace $fname"
                mv "$fname" $new_fname
        fi
done

This one does a little bit more. I use it to rename my downloaded torrents (no special characters (non-ASCII), spaces, multiple dots, etc.).

#!/usr/bin/perl

&rena(`find . -type d`);
&rena(`find . -type f`);

sub rena
{
    ($elems)=@_;
    @t=split /\n/,$elems;

    for $e (@t)
    {
    $_=$e;
    # remove ./ of find
    s/^\.\///;
    # non ascii transliterate
    tr [\200-\377][_];
    tr [\000-\40][_];
    # special characters we do not want in paths
    s/[ \-\,\;\?\+\'\"\!\[\]\(\)\@\#]/_/g;
    # multiple dots except for extension
    while (/\..*\./)
    {
        s/\./_/;
    }
    # only one _ consecutive
    s/_+/_/g;
    next if ($_ eq $e ) or ("./$_" eq $e);
    print "$e -> $_\n";
    rename ($e,$_);
    }
}

A find/rename solution. rename is part of util-linux.

You need to descend depth first, because a whitespace filename can be part of a whitespace directory:

find /tmp/ -depth -name "* *" -execdir rename " " "_" "{}" ";"

In macOS

Just like the chosen answer.

brew install rename

# 
cd <your dir>
find . -name "* *" -type d | rename 's/ /_/g'    # do the directories first
find . -name "* *" -type f | rename 's/ /_/g'

My solution to the problem is a bash script:

#!/bin/bash
directory=$1
cd "$directory"
while [ "$(find ./ -regex '.* .*' | wc -l)" -gt 0 ];
do filename="$(find ./ -regex '.* .*' | head -n 1)"
mv "$filename" "$(echo "$filename" | sed 's|'" "'|_|g')"
done

just put the directory name, on which you want to apply the script, as an argument after executing the script.

For files in folder named /files

for i in `IFS="";find /files -name *\ *`
do
   echo $i
done > /tmp/list


while read line
do
   mv "$line" `echo $line | sed 's/ /_/g'`
done < /tmp/list

rm /tmp/list

For those struggling through this using macOS, first install all the tools:

 brew install tree findutils rename

Then when needed to rename, make an alias for GNU find (gfind) as find. Then run the code of @Michel Krelin:

alias find=gfind 
find . -depth -name '* *' \
| while IFS= read -r f ; do mv -i "$f" "$(dirname "$f")/$(basename "$f"|tr ' ' _)" ; done   

I just make one for my own purpose. You may can use it as reference.

#!/bin/bash
cd /vzwhome/c0cheh1/dev_source/UB_14_8
for file in *
do
    echo $file
    cd "/vzwhome/c0cheh1/dev_source/UB_14_8/$file/Configuration/$file"
    echo "==> `pwd`"
    for subfile in *\ *; do [ -d "$subfile" ] && ( mv "$subfile" "$(echo $subfile | sed -e 's/ /_/g')" ); done
    ls
    cd /vzwhome/c0cheh1/dev_source/UB_14_8
done

Here's a (quite verbose) find -exec solution which writes "file already exists" warnings to stderr:

function trspace() {
   declare dir name bname dname newname replace_char
   [ $# -lt 1 -o $# -gt 2 ] && { echo "usage: trspace dir char"; return 1; }
   dir="${1}"
   replace_char="${2:-_}"
   find "${dir}" -xdev -depth -name $'*[ \t\r\n\v\f]*' -exec bash -c '
      for ((i=1; i<=$#; i++)); do
         name="${@:i:1}"
         dname="${name%/*}"
         bname="${name##*/}"
         newname="${dname}/${bname//[[:space:]]/${0}}"
         if [[ -e "${newname}" ]]; then
            echo "Warning: file already exists: ${newname}" 1>&2
         else
            mv "${name}" "${newname}"
         fi
      done
  ' "${replace_char}" '{}' +
}

trspace rootdir _

you can use detox by Doug Harple

detox -r <folder>

I use:

for f in *\ *; do mv "$f" "${f// /_}"; done

Though it's not recursive, it's quite fast and simple. I'm sure someone here could update it to be recursive.

The ${f// /_} part utilizes bash's parameter expansion mechanism to replace a pattern within a parameter with supplied string. The relevant syntax is ${parameter/pattern/string}. See: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Shell-Parameter-Expansion.html or http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/syntax/pe .

bash 4.0

#!/bin/bash
shopt -s globstar
for file in **/*\ *
do 
    mv "$file" "${file// /_}"       
done

Recursive version of Naidim's Answers.

find . -name "* *" | awk '{ print length, $0 }' | sort -nr -s | cut -d" " -f2- | while read f; do base=$(basename "$f"); newbase="${base// /_}"; mv "$(dirname "$f")/$(basename "$f")" "$(dirname "$f")/$newbase"; done