Rename - Truncate current name

Help & Support
1

I would like to be a be able to select some files and click a button which would rename all the selected files. EACH file should be given a truncated version of its current name. I want to keep the first (assume) 9 characters of its current name (plus the current extension).

if one of the files is named: thisisatest.txt prior to the rename, after the rename its name would be: thisisate.txt

I am not sure if Dopus commands can do this. It could be doable using VBScript via the LEFT function.

2

Look here : [url]Keep the x first characters]

3

A regex rename should do what you want:

Rename PATTERN "(^.{9})(.*)\.(.*)" TO "\1.\3" REGEXP
4

Thank you, the RegEx is definitely a good way to go. Unfortunately I did not realize that part of the string I want to keep is a date and the number of characters can vary depending on which month/day it is. I think I can search for the underline character "_" in the name (which follows the date) and then take it and the following 3 characters plus the date and make those the characters to keep (plus the extension). I will play with it.

5

Give some actual examples - we'll help.

6

This is what I came up with based on the example above:

Rename PATTERN "(^.)_(.{3})(.).(.*)" TO "\1_\2.\4" REGEXP

It is intended to take all the characters before the underscore, the underscore, and the 3 characters after the underscore plus the extension. I did some quick tests and it seems to work. I will have to wait till I download the "real" files on Saturday to be sure.

Again I would not have been able to do this without the examples above. Thanks for the help.

7

Syntax looks good to me for what you've said you want to do... good job :wink:.

Anytime drac....

8

Well, its Saturday and I downloaded the "real" files AND, there was a glitch. As it happens there was another underscore in the file name and the \2 picked the second one as well - and the three characters after it. I solved the issue by putting another underscore after that logic:

Rename PATTERN "(^.)(.{3})(.).(.*)" TO "\1_\2.\4" REGEXP

But that just happens to work with these file names. Is there a way to grab the FIRST occurrence of the underscore and the three following characters and ignore any other underscores in the name?

9

Sounds you need to make your regex non-greedy, lookup the "?" operator for this and apply it the appropriate group/character.

RegExes are greedy by default, so something like (.*_) will always get you anything before the last underscore found, the "?" helps here to limit the match to the first occurrence of the underscore.

10

You can also change the .* at the start (which matches anything) to only match things which are not underscores: [^_]*

11

I tried the ? as suggested by tbone, but could not get that to work for me. I might have been missing some needed grouping.

using Leo's suggestion I was able to get the command to work as intended with the string below.

Rename PATTERN "(^[^]*)(.{3})(.).(.)" TO "\1_\2.\4" REGEXP

Thanks to both of your for your response.

I do not understand why the previous logic seemed to grab the LAST underscore and then the three characters following IT. I would interpret that PREVIOUS logic as: grab characters until you find an underscore (/1), grab the next three characters(/2), grab characters until you find a period (/3), then grab all the rest of the characters (/4). Why did using the NOT underscore in the first group make such a difference?

12

Your interpretation is wrong. Regexps are "greedy" by default and .* will grab the most characters it can while still matching the string. (This is usually a good thing, but not always.)