MURx (Multiple Rename eXtended)

Keywords: renaming files multiple regular expressions

Introduction
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The app makes it possible to rename all (or some) files of a folder according to certain rules. The basic principle is the specification of two patterns: a "search pattern" and a "replacement pattern". The two patterns are entered - separated by a slash - in the text box at the top of the display and form a "filter".

"Globbing"
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The default for the search pattern is the so-called "globbing" which is known from the Windows world. For example the string recognizes

?data*.txt

all filenames starting with any character then the string "data" followed by an arbitrarily long (even empty) string and ending with the string ".txt".

Replacement pattern
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The replacement pattern is any string containing replacement parameters. These consist of a dollar sign followed by a digit or one of the letters x or n and have the following meanings:

$0: the entire string recognized by the search pattern (the entire recognized file name - except for regular expressions: s.b.)

$1: the first recognized substring (in the example above the first character of the filename - represented by the question mark)

$2: the second recognized substring (represented by the asterisk in the example above)
...
$9: the ninth substring detected

$x: recording date and time of an image file (if this data is stored in the image file)

$n: sequential number (starting with 1) of the file in the list of found files

Simplified replacement
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For four common cases a simplified input of the filter is offered via 4 buttons:

- the deletion of a defined (partial) character string
- the insertion of a string at the beginning
- the insertion of a string at the end
- replacing one string with another

Regular expressions ("regex" mode)
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As an alternative to globbing "regular expressions" can be used. The switching takes place in the menu. For regular expressions there are detailed instructions in the web (e.g. Wikipedia). With them much more complex detection mechanisms can be defined than is possible with globbing. However the renaming of the files via this mechanism is only realized in the full version of the app (MURxPro).