NAME¶
mmv - move/copy/append/link multiple files by wildcard patterns
SYNOPSIS¶
mmv [
-m|
x|
r|
c|
o|
a|
l|
s] [
-h] [
-d|
p] [
-g|
t] [
-v|
n] [
--] [
from to]
EXAMPLES¶
Rename all
*.jpeg files in the current directory to
*.jpg:
mmv '*.jpeg' '#1.jpg'
Replace the first occurrence of
abc with
xyz in all files in the
current directory:
mmv '*abc*' '#1xyz#2'
Rename files ending in
.html.en,
.html.de, etc. to ending in
.en.html,
.de.html, etc. in the current directory:
mmv '*.html.??' '#1.#2#3.html'
Rename music files from
<track no.> - <interpreter> - <song
title>.ogg to
<interpreter> - <track no.> - <song
title>.ogg in the current directory:
mmv '* - * - *.ogg' '#2 - #1 - #3.ogg'
DESCRIPTION¶
Mmv moves (or copies, appends, or links, as specified) each source file
matching a
from pattern to the target name specified by the
to
pattern. This multiple action is performed safely, i.e. without any unexpected
deletion of files due to collisions of target names with existing filenames or
with other target names. Furthermore, before doing anything,
mmv
attempts to detect any errors that would result from the entire set of actions
specified and gives the user the choice of either proceeding by avoiding the
offending parts or aborting.
mmv does support large files (LFS) but it
does *NOT* support sparse files (i.e. it explodes them).
The Task Options
Whether
mmv moves, copies, appends, or links is governed by the first set
of options given above. If none of these are specified, the task is given by
the command name under which
mmv was invoked (argv[0]):
command name default task
mmv -x
mcp -c
mad -a
mln -l
The task option choices are:
- -m :
- move source file to target name. Both must be on the same device. Will not
move directories. If the source file is a symbolic link, moves the link
without checking if the link's target from the new directory is different
than the old.
- -x :
- same as -m, except cross-device moves are done by copying, then deleting
source. When copying, sets the permission bits and file modification time
of the target file to that of the source file.
- -r :
- rename source file or directory to target name. The target name must not
include a path: the file remains in the same directory in all cases. This
option is the only way of renaming directories under mmv.
- -c :
- copy source file to target name. Sets the file modification time and
permission bits of the target file to that of the source file, regardless
of whether the target file already exists. Chains and cycles (to be
explained below) are not allowed.
- -o :
- overwrite target name with source file. If target file exists, it is
overwritten, keeping its original owner and permission bits. If it does
not exist, it is created, with read-write permission bits set according to
umask(1), and the execute permission bits copied from the source
file. In either case, the file modification time is set to the current
time.
- -a :
- append contents of source file to target name. Target file modification
time is set to the current time. If target file does not exist, it is
created with permission bits set as under -o. Unlike all other options, -a
allows multiple source files to have the same target name, e.g. "mmv
-a \*.c big" will append all ".c" files to "big".
Chains and cycles are also allowed, so "mmv -a f f" will double
up "f".
- -l :
- link target name to source file. Both must be on the same device, and the
source must not be a directory. Chains and cycles are not allowed.
- -s :
- same as -l, but use symbolic links instead of hard links. For the
resulting link to aim back at the source, either the source name must
begin with a '/', or the target must reside in either the current or the
source directory. If none of these conditions are met, the link is
refused. However, source and target can reside on different devices, and
the source can be a directory.
Only one of these option may be given, and it applies to all matching files.
Remaining options need not be given separately, i.e. "mmv -mk" is
allowed.
Multiple Pattern Pairs / Reading Patterns from STDIN
Multiple
from --
to pattern pairs may be specified by omitting the
pattern pair on the command line, and entering them on the standard input, one
pair per line. (If a pattern pair is given on the command line, the standard
input is not read.) Thus,
mmv
a b
c d
would rename "a" to "b" and "c" to "d".
If a file can be matched to several of the given
from patterns, the
to pattern of the first matching pair is used. Thus,
mmv
a b
a c
would give the error message "a -> c : no match" because file
"a" (even if it exists) was already matched by the first pattern
pair.
WARNING: This operation mode does
not work if the patterns itself
contain
spaces. See
http://bugs.debian.org/149873 for details.
The
From Pattern
The
from pattern is a filename with embedded wildcards: '*', '?',
'['...']', and ';'. The first three have their usual
sh(1) meanings of,
respectively, matching any string of characters, matching any single
character, and matching any one of a set of characters.
Between the '[' and ']', a range from character 'a' through character 'z' is
specified with "a-z". The set of matching characters can be negated
by inserting a '^' after the '['. Thus, "[^b-e2-5_]" will match any
character but 'b' through 'e', '2' through '5', and '_'.
Note that paths are allowed in the patterns, and wildcards may be intermingled
with slashes arbitrarily. The ';' wildcard is useful for matching files at any
depth in the directory tree. It matches the same as "*/" repeated
any number of times, including zero, and can only occur either at the
beginning of the pattern or following a '/'. Thus ";*.c" will match
all ".c" files in or below the current directory, while
"/;*.c" will match them anywhere on the file system.
In addition, if the
from pattern (or the
to pattern) begins with
"~/", the '~' is replaced with the home directory name. (Note that
the "~user" feature of
csh(1) is not implemented.) However,
the '~' is not treated as a wildcard, in the sense that it is not assigned a
wildcard index (see below).
Since matching a directory under a task option other than -r or -s would result
in an error, tasks other than -r and -s match directories only against
completely explicit
from patterns (i.e. not containing wildcards).
Under -r and -s, this applies only to "." and "..".
Files beginning with '.' are only matched against
from patterns that
begin with an explicit '.'. However, if -h is specified, they are matched
normally.
Warning: since the shell normally expands wildcards before passing the
command-line arguments to
mmv, it is usually necessary to enclose the
command-line
from and
to patterns in quotes.
The
To Pattern
The
to pattern is a filename with embedded
wildcard
indexes, where an index consists of the character '#' followed by a
string of digits. When a source file matches a
from pattern, a target
name for the file is constructed out of the
to pattern by replacing the
wildcard indexes by the actual characters that matched the referenced
wildcards in the source name. Thus, if the
from pattern is
"abc*.*" and the
to pattern is "xyz#2.#1", then
"abc.txt" is targeted to "xyztxt.". (The first '*' matched
"", and the second matched "txt".) Similarly, for the
pattern pair ";*.[clp]" -> "#1#3/#2",
"foo1/foo2/prog.c" is targeted to "foo1/foo2/c/prog". Note
that there is no '/' following the "#1" in the
to pattern,
since the string matched by any ';' is always either empty or ends in a '/'.
In this case, it matches "foo1/foo2/".
To convert the string matched by a wildcard to either lowercase or uppercase
before embedding it in the target name, insert 'l' or 'u', respectively,
between the '#' and the string of digits.
The
to pattern, like the
from pattern, can begin with a
"~/" (see above). This does not necessitate enclosing the
to
pattern in quotes on the command line since
csh(1) expands the '~' in
the exact same manner as
mmv (or, in the case of
sh(1), does not
expand it at all).
For all task options other than -r, if the target name is a directory, the real
target name is formed by appending a '/' followed by the last component of the
source file name. For example, "mmv dir1/a dir2" will, if
"dir2" is indeed a directory, actually move "dir1/a" to
"dir2/a". However, if "dir2/a" already exists and is
itself a directory, this is considered an error.
To strip any character (e.g. '*', '?', or '#') of its special meaning to
mmv, as when the actual replacement name must contain the character
'#', precede the special character with a ´\' (and enclose the argument
in quotes because of the shell). This also works to terminate a wildcard index
when it has to be followed by a digit in the filename, e.g. "a#1\1".
Chains and Cycles
A chain is a sequence of specified actions where the target name of one action
refers to the source file of another action. For example,
mmv
a b
b c
specifies the chain "a" -> "b" -> "c". A
cycle is a chain where the last target name refers back to the first source
file, e.g. "mmv a a".
Mmv detects chains and cycles
regardless of the order in which their constituent actions are actually given.
Where allowed, i.e. in moving, renaming, and appending files, chains and
cycles are handled gracefully, by performing them in the proper order. Cycles
are broken by first renaming one of the files to a temporary name (or just
remembering its original size when doing appends).
Collisions and Deletions
When any two or more matching files would have to be moved, copied, or linked to
the same target filename,
mmv detects the condition as an error before
performing any actions. Furthermore,
mmv checks if any of its actions
will result in the destruction of existing files. If the -d (delete) option is
specified, all file deletions or overwrites are done silently. Under -p
(protect), all deletions or overwrites (except those specified with
"(*)" on the standard input, see below) are treated as errors. And
if neither option is specified, the user is queried about each deletion or
overwrite separately. (A new stream to "/dev/tty" is used for all
interactive queries, not the standard input.)
Error Handling
Whenever any error in the user's action specifications is detected, an error
message is given on the standard output, and
mmv proceeds to check the
rest of the specified actions. Once all errors are detected,
mmv
queries the user whether he wishes to continue by avoiding the erroneous
actions or to abort altogether. This and all other queries may be avoided by
specifying either the -g (go) or -t (terminate) option. The former will
resolve all difficulties by avoiding the erroneous actions; the latter will
abort
mmv if any errors are detected. Specifying either of them
defaults
mmv to -p, unless -d is specified (see above). Thus, -g and -t
are most useful when running
mmv in the background or in a shell
script, when interactive queries are undesirable.
Reports
Once the actions to be performed are determined,
mmv performs them
silently, unless either the -v (verbose) or -n (no-execute) option is
specified. The former causes
mmv to report each performed action on the
standard output as
a -> b : done.
Here, "a" and "b" would be replaced by the source and target
names, respectively. If the action deletes the old target, a "(*)"
is inserted after the the target name. Also, the "->" symbol is
modified when a cycle has to be broken: the '>' is changed to a '^' on the
action prior to which the old target is renamed to a temporary, and the '-' is
changed to a '=' on the action where the temporary is used.
Under -n, none of the actions are performed, but messages like the above are
printed on the standard output with the ": done." omitted.
The output generated by -n can (after editing, if desired) be fed back to
mmv on the standard input (by omitting the
from --
to
pair on the
mmv command line). To facilitate this,
mmv ignores
lines on the standard input that look like its own error and "done"
messages, as well as all lines beginning with white space, and will accept
pattern pairs with or without the intervening "->" (or
"-^", "=>", or "=^"). Lines with
"(*)" after the target pattern have the effect of enabling -d for
the files matching this pattern only, so that such deletions are done
silently.
WARNING: This means that
unexpected things may happen if
files matched by the patterns contain
spaces. See
http://bugs.debian.org/149873 for details.
When feeding
mmv its own output, one must remember to specify again the
task option (if any) originally used to generate it.
Although
mmv attempts to predict all mishaps prior to performing any
specified actions, accidents may happen. For example,
mmv does not
check for adequate free space when copying. Thus, despite all efforts, it is
still possible for an action to fail after some others have already been done.
To make recovery as easy as possible,
mmv reports which actions have
already been done and which are still to be performed after such a failure
occurs. It then aborts, not attempting to do anything else. Once the user has
cleared up the problem, he can feed this report back to
mmv on the
standard input to have it complete the task. (The user is queried for a file
name to dump this report if the standard output has not been redirected.)
EXIT STATUS¶
Mmv exits with status 1 if it aborts before doing anything, with status 2
if it aborts due to failure after completing some of the actions, and with
status 0 otherwise.
SEE ALSO¶
mv(1),
cp(1),
ln(1),
umask(1)
AUTHOR¶
Vladimir Lanin
lanin@csd2.nyu.edu
BUGS¶
If the search pattern is not quoted, the shell expands the wildcards.
Mmv
then (usually) gives some error message, but can not determine that the lack
of quotes is the cause.
To avoid difficulties in semantics and error checking,
mmv refuses to
move or create directories.