thanks todd... at the risk of asking a rather basic question.. can someone explain exactly what/why this seesm to work.. per your reply, i have : abcCAT.py abcCAT.txt i'd like to rename the files, so i get abcCAT_dog.py abcCAT_dog.txt i've been trying to figure out how to achieve what i want using rename and pattern matching.. i'm missing something.. and it's simple!! any thoughts/pointers? $ rename . _dog. abcCAT.* ls abcCAT* abcCAT_dog.py abcCAT_dog.txt this works. but i can't find any docs that give a good explanation of how/why this works. it appears that the rename is taking the "_dog" and adding it to the "abcCAT"... but how would i know that this is going to occur.. is this really what's going on.. what if i wanted to have the "_dog" added before the abcCAT... in searching the net (google) couldn't really find any good docs for this.. i was also under the impression that 'rename' could use regex's but i can't figure out how.. thanks -----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:fedora-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Todd Zullinger Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 8:55 AM To: fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: pattern matching rename... bruce wrote: > i have the following as a test... > > abcCAT.py > abcCAT.txt > > i'd like to rename the files, so i get > abcCAT_dog.py > abcCAT_dog.txt > > i've been trying to figure out how to achieve what i want using > rename and pattern matching.. i'm missing something.. and it's > simple!! > > any thoughts/pointers? $ rename . _dog. abcCAT.* $ ls abcCAT* abcCAT_dog.py abcCAT_dog.txt Beware that there are different programs named rename on different distros. -- Todd OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp ====================================================================== I believe in the noble, aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing. And someday, I hope to be in a position where I can do even less.