Museum

10.0;chn (change_name), revision 1.0, 88/01/21
chn (change_name) -- Change an object's name.
usage:  chn old_name [new_name] [-p] [-d | -y] [-u] [-s] {CL}



DESCRIPTION
     chn changes the name of a file, directory, or link.  chn works with the
     rightmost component ("leafname") of the old name (see EXAMPLES).

     You cannot use chn to change the name of a directory embedded in a
     complete pathname, if doing so would relocate the file.  to some other
     part of the naming tree.  For instance,

     $ chn //et/mary/letters //et/fred/letters

     is illegal.  Use the mvf (move_file) command for that operation.

     Multiple old_name/new_name pairs and pathname wildcarding are permitted.

ARGUMENTS
     old_name (required)
                    Specify the current pathname of the object to be renamed.

     new_name (optional)
                    Specify the new name of the object.  The new name may be
                    derived from the old name.   new_name may be omitted
                    entirely if -d, -y,or -u are specified. Otherwise, some
                    portion of it is required. Names may be 1 to 32 characters
                    long.

                    Default if omitted:  derive new_name from old_name

OPTIONS
     -p[airwise]
          Instructs chn to accept the list of tokens as consecutive pairs.
          This is necessary whether you are using wildcards or not.

     -d   Append today's date (month and day) to new_name in the form
          new_name.mm.dd

     -y   Append today's date (year, month, and day) to new_name in the form
          new_name.yy.mm.dd

     -u   Force new_name to be unique by appending a sequence number to the
          end of the name until it becomes unique.

     -s   List names changed on standard output.

NOTES
     If you use more than one pair of name tokens with this command, you must
     use the -p option. It instructs the command to accept the list of tokens
     as consecutive pairs. This is necessary whether you are using wildcards
     or not. In the past, this command has correctly paired off tokens without
     the prompting of a switch; now the -p switch must be used to acheive this
     result.  The switch has been added to protect against inadvertent use in
     a shell, other than /com/sh, where wildcard expansion can be a problem.

EXAMPLES
     Change the name fritz to henri in the current working directory.

     $ chn fritz henri


     Change henri to mike and peter to paul.

     $ chn henri mike peter paul


     Change a, b, and c to a.zorp, b.zorp, and c.zorp.

     $ chn (a b c) =.zorp


     Change the file projects to new_projects in the directory /my/stuff.

     $ chn /my/stuff/projects new_projects


     Change  henri to  henri.mm.dd  where mm is the current month (01-12) and
     dd is the current date (01-31).

     $ chn henri -d
     henri.07.19


     Change joe by appending sequence number to end of filename.

     $ chn joe -u
     joe.1