Rename – perlrex program – Renaming Movies – example 1
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NOTE: these are not my movies. Just helping a friend out with renames, and thought it would be nice for an article on “rename”. This article is strictly educational.
NOTE: See summary at the bottom for the recap of the commands for folders containing movie files, and for folders containing movie folders.
NOTE: The “rename” tool im using is the perl rename tool sometimes called “prename”, “rename.pl”, or simply rename (sidenote, there is also another similar tool called “rename” tool from a package called util-linux, which isnt as good as the one we work with – google “rename util-linux”, I have more info on the provided link). More information on perl rename and not-as-good-util-linux rename: http://www.infotinks.com/renameperl/
Good article to read on perlregex: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html and another example: http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/03/renaming-files/
Usually movies you download have the format of
Movie Name.Year.Garbage.extension
That look like this
The.Jacket.2005.iNTERNAL.DVDRip.XViD-MULTiPLY.avi The.Prince.2014.hdrip.xvid.avi The.Rover.2014.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi
We want to remove the Garbage part, so it looks like this
SIDENOTE: I will talk about renaming folders as well. They usually have a similar pattern. Except they lack the extension.
Movie Name.Year.extension
So that they look like this
The.Jacket.2005.avi The.Prince.2014.avi The.Rover.2014.avi
Making Rename.pl output prettier
So we use “rename” which is a perl program, can be downloaded here: http://www.infotinks.com/renameperl/
Then I made a small edit in so that instead of it showing things it will rename (or already renamed as), as simply “rename as”, i changed its code to say “———–>” instead. That way its easier to see what its doing. Example:
Normally it would say: 10,000 Days 2014 UNRATED HDRIP x264 AC3 TiTAN.mkv renamed as 10,000 Days 2014.mkv But I made it say: 10,000 Days 2014 UNRATED HDRIP x264 AC3 TiTAN.mkv ----------> 10,000 Days 2014.mkv
Its much easier to see how much that helps when you have a huge list of renames.
The edit looks like this, first locate the rename program “which rename” for me its here “/usr/bin/rename“. So open up an editor “vi /usr/bin/rename” and go to line 65 (Press 65 then Shift G)
Change line 65 from saying this:
print "$was renamed as $_\n" if $verbose;
To say this:
print "$was ----------> $_\n" if $verbose;
Note: there are some spaces or tabs leading up to the print statement, make sure to leave those there. They didnt get included in the paste, when I pasted here.
Save and exit
So first I go into the directory where I have the movies (this folder must only have movie files, no movie folders – movie folder situation will be covered later), and I run this:
# rename -n ‘s/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g’ *
Thats just a dry run. So nothing bad will happen. The output is this
# rename -n ‘s/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g’ *
# rename -n 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g' *
10,000 Days 2014 UNRATED HDRIP x264 AC3 TiTAN.mkv ----------> 10,000 Days 2014.mkv
22.Jump.Street.2014.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> 22.Jump.Street.2014.avi
Anatomy.of.a.Love.Seen.2014.WEB-DL.X264.Ac3.CrEwSaDe.mkv ----------> Anatomy.of.a.Love.Seen.2014.mkv
Annabelle 2014 HC HDRIP x264 AC3 TiTAN.mkv ----------> Annabelle 2014.mkv
Another.Me.2013.DVDRip.XviD-EVO.avi ----------> Another.Me.2013.avi
Automata 2014 WEBrip XviD AC3 MiLLENiUM.avi ----------> Automata 2014.avi
blood.lake.attack.of.the.killer.lampreys.2014-480p.mkv ----------> blood.lake.attack.of.the.killer.lampreys.2014.mkv
Boyhood.2014.BRRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> Boyhood.2014.avi
Chef.2014.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> Chef.2014.avi
Deja Vu 2006 DVDRip Xvid- INFERNO.avi ----------> Deja Vu 2006.avi
Earth.To.Echo.2014.720p.HDRiP.XVID.AC3-MAJESTIC.avi ----------> Earth.To.Echo.2014.avi
Extracted.2012.DVDRip.XviD-playXD.avi ----------> Extracted.2012.avi
Good.People.2014.HDRip.XViD-juggs[ETRG].avi ----------> Good.People.2014.avi
Hercules.2014.EXTENDED.720p.WEB-DL.x264.AC3-EVO.mkv ----------> Hercules.2014.mkv
Jack.Ryan.Shadow.Recruit.2014.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> Jack.Ryan.Shadow.Recruit.2014.avi
Lets.Be.Cops.2014.BRRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> Lets.Be.Cops.2014.avi
Life After Beth 2014 HDRIP XVID AC3 ACAB.avi ----------> Life After Beth 2014.avi
Maleficent.2014.RETAIL.DVDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> Maleficent.2014.avi
My.Man.is.a.Loser.2014.BRRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> My.Man.is.a.Loser.2014.avi
Primer 2004 720p WEB-DL DD5.1 H.264.mkv ----------> Primer 2004.mkv
See.No.Evil.2006.DVDRip.x264-UWT.mp4 ----------> See.No.Evil.2006.mp4
See.No.Evil.2.2014.BRRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> See.No.Evil.2.2014.avi
Source Code (2011) DVDRip XviD.avi ----------> Source Code (2011).avi
Street Fighter Assassin's Fist 2014 HDRip XviD-HELLRAZ0R.avi ----------> Street Fighter Assassin's Fist 2014.avi
The Babadook 2014 720p HDRIP XVID AC3 Westdenco.avi ----------> The Babadook 2014.avi
The.Jacket.2005.iNTERNAL.DVDRip.XViD-MULTiPLY.avi ----------> The.Jacket.2005.avi
The.Prince.2014.hdrip.xvid.avi ----------> The.Prince.2014.avi
The.Rover.2014.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> The.Rover.2014.avi
The.Signal.2014.720p.WEBRip.AC3.x264-LEGi0N.mkv ----------> The.Signal.2014.mkv
The.Town.That.Dreaded.Sundown.2014.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> The.Town.That.Dreaded.Sundown.2014.avi
The.Two.Faces.of.January.2014.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> The.Two.Faces.of.January.2014.avi
Transcendence.2014.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> Transcendence.2014.avi
Wolves.2014.WEBRip.XViD.AC3-GLY.avi ----------> Wolves.2014.avi
Anyhow the above translations look good, so I run it again without the -n, which will confirm the run. Also I can run it with -v if I want to see the same output above, or else without -v the output is empty.
# rename ‘s/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g’ *
So what does this mean:
# rename -n ‘s/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g’ *
First off a movie is named like this:
Movie Name.Year.Garbage.extension
But we want
Movie Name.Year.extension
Note: the dot can be a dot or a space or a dash, it doesnt matter, im just trying to show the seperation
So lets save each section into a variable
$1=Movie Name.Year
$2=Garbage
$3=extension
I clumped up $1 as the movie name and the year as they are usually right next to each other
Then I let it know to work on all files with * (thats outside the perl regex), no matter their extension or anything.
So lets look into this perl regex
‘s/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g’
s/oldstuff/newstuff/g means to substitute oldstuff into newstuff (s means substitute, well it means search&replace)
for us oldstuff is ^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$ and newstuff is what we want to look like which simple $1$3 (we want it to look like variable #1 followed by variable $3)
Each variable looks like this (it starts and ends with parenthesis – thats are not escaped, with regular “sed” you would need to escape those parenthesis, and then recall the variables with \1\3 instead of $1$3)
(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?) thats saved as variable $1 because its the first to appear (its the Movie name.Year)
(.*) thats saved as $2 beacuse its the second to appear (its the garbage
(\..*) thats saved as $3 because its the third to appear (its the extension)
Curious Note: how would this look like with sed instead of perl regex:
‘s/^\(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?\)\(.*\)\(\..*\)$/\1\3/g’
I believe it would just be put a \ before the ( and ) when setting the variables in the oldstuff section, and change the $ to \ when calling the variablesin the newstuff section
^ means its a start of a new line, and $ means its the end of the line… All files start after a newline, and end before a newline.
Our first variable is saved like this
(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)
Now that looks complicated
Originally it was like this:
(.*[0-9]{4})
So it looked like this
‘s/^(.*[0-9]{4})(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g’
But then we would get renames like this:
Source Code (2011) DVDRip XviD.avi ----------> Source Code (2011.avi
Notice its missing the ) at the end. So I let it know with [\)\]\}]?
which should be read like this [ )]} ]?
To match one occurrence of ) or ] or } after [0-9]{4} (which matches the year, by saying match 4 numbers at least)
But since ) ] } are special chars I have to escape them with a \
So the whole thing looks like this
[\)\]\}]?
The ? means match 0 or 1, because sometimes there could be 0 of those
So now you can see that (.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?) Matches the Movie name.Year
The .* Matches any character as long as its not a newline, So it will match any movie name and space and dot or whatever
After the .* it matches the Year (4 digit year)
Then after the year it looks for a single optional (because of the question mark, ?, its 1 or 0 meaning “single optional”) closing surround character like ) or ] or }
Note: of course I could of used other surround chars like <year> or -year-, but noone really uses those
So after the year we want to match the garbage, and we know it can look like anything, so we say this:
(.*)
Note if we just left the regex like this:
rename -n ‘s/^(.*[0-9]{4})(.*)$/$1/g’ *
So missing (\..*) in oldstuff section of the search&replace and the $3 in the newstuff of the search&replace
Without the last part that matches the regular expersion we would get things like this:
Transcendence.2014.HDRip.XviD.AC3-EVO.avi ----------> Transcendence.2014 Wolves.2014.WEBRip.XViD.AC3-GLY.avi ----------> Wolves.2014
So its missing the extension. So lets save the extension as well. We know the extension ends with dot followed by a number of characters (usually 3, but we will assume its an infinite amount of character).
Since a dot matches any character, we need to escape it
\. matches a dot
. matches any character
* matches the previous thing any number of times
Combine
\..* would match things like:
In here
sadfkajsdfaskdhfas.dfa.sdf.asdfasdfasdf.asdf.123
It would match that .123 at the end
But we want that in a variable to (\..*) so now its saved into variable $3, as its the third set of parenthesis to appear
Finally we get to call upon how we want this to look like
$1$3 would look good, its the Movie name.Year.Extension
So how do I handle folders which have movie folders? See Summary.
Summary!
NOTE: Before doing any renames I recommend making a backup or taking a snapshot (if your filesystem supports snapshots)
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### Files: ###
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# *** The only requirement below is for the situation if there are only movie files in the actual folder your in *** #
# DRY-RUN ALL FILES IN CURRENT FOLDER: A folder containing movie files (no folders), can be renamed like so:
rename -n 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g' *
# ACTUAL RUN ALL FILES IN CURRENT FOLDER: Then remove the -n & replace with -v to make it actually do the rename (with verbose output):
rename -v 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g' *
# DRY-RUN 1 FILE IN CURRENT FOLDER: Or to rename a single movie file (where $filename is the name of the movie):
rename -n 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g' $filename
# ACTUAL RUN 1 FILE IN CURRENT FOLDER: And then to actually run it, remove the -n or replace with -v
rename -v 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g' $filename
################
### Folders: ###
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# I did mention that we will cover the case if there are movie folders, well movie folders are just like the movie files except there are no extensions in the final name (so we simply remove the $3) - You might be thinking then we dont need the last part (\..*) that saves the extension into the $3 variable, and your right, but it doesnt matter, for simplicity I just removed the $3 from the output side of the rename/sed expression.
# *** The only requirement below is for the situation if there are only mmovie folder in the current directory your in *** #
# DRY-RUN ALL FOLDERS IN CURRENT FOLDER: A folder containing movie folders/subfolders (then the subfolders contain the movie files), can be renamed like so (this wont do the rename until you remove -n):
rename -n 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1/g' *
# ACTUAL RUN ALL FOLDERS IN CURRENT FOLDER: now remove the -n to do the rename (or replace with -v to make it verbose when it actually does the rename):
rename -v 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1/g' *
# DRY-RUN 1 FOLDER IN CURRENT FOLDER:Can work on 1 folder, just replace $filename with the folder
rename -n 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1/g' $filename
# ACTUAL RUN 1 1FOLDER IN CURRENT FOLDER: now actually do the rename:
rename -v 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1/g' $filename
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### BOTH ###
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# *** below works for a folder containing movie files and subfolders which contain movies and files - and that could go on recursively and it will work *** #
# I dont recommmend running this in your word doc or any other folder other than movie folders.
# DRY-RUN BOTH: First run this to verify you want the changes
find -type d -exec rename -n 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1/g' {} \;
find -type f -exec rename -n 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g' {} \;
# ACTUAL-RUN BOTH: Now run this to actually make the changes
find -type d -exec rename -v 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1/g' {} \;
find -type f -exec rename -v 's/^(.*[0-9]{4}[\)\]\}]?)(.*)(\..*)$/$1$3/g' {} \;