How to rename files using wildcard in bash?

Question

I was trying to rename the files to another extension:

# mv  *.sqlite3_done *.sqlite3

I am getting an error:

mv: target '*.sqlite3' is not a directory

Why?

Answer 1

The wildcard expansion results in many names being passed to your command. Shell imagines you are trying to move your multiple files to *.sqlite3 directory.

You need to use a loop:

for nam in *sqlite3_done

do

    newname=${nam%_done}

    mv $nam $newname

done

The %_done says to remove the last occurrence of _done from the string.

If you still have spaces in the filenames then you need to quote the filenames.

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