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Ren (command)
Shell command for renaming a file or directory From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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ren (or rename) is a shell command for renaming a file and in some implementations (such as AmigaDOS[1]) a directory.
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Some shells with ren also provide a move command that provides for moving between directories. On systems that do not support a move command (such as MS-DOS older than 6.00), the user could copy a file to a new destination and then delete the original file. In DOSBox, ren can move files.
RENAME command of RT-11SJ displayed on a VT100.The command is in various shells such as COMMAND.COM, Command Prompt[2], 4DOS, 4NT and PowerShell. In MS-DOS, the command is available in versions 1 and later.[3] In PowerShell, ren is a predefined alias for the Rename-Item Cmdlet which serves the same essential purpose.[4]
Similar commands are available in many operating systems. The command is available in the CP/M,[5] MP/M,[6][7] Cromemco DOS,[8] TRIPOS,[9] OS/2,[10] ReactOS,[11] SymbOS, and DexOS. Multics includes a rename command to rename a directory entry; which could be contracted to rn.[12] A rename command which in some cases can be contracted to ren is provided in Stratus VOS,[13] RT-11,[14] OS/8,[15] RSX-11,[16] ISIS-II,[17] iRMX 86,[18] TOPS-20,[19] Z80-RIO,[20] FLEX,[21] OS-9,[22] FlexOS,[23] 4690 OS,[24] MPE/iX,[25] THEOS/OASIS,[26] and OpenVMS[27] A rename command is supported by 86-DOS.[28] DR DOS 6.0 includes ren and rename commands.[29] PC-MOS includes an implementation of rename.[30][31] It is also available in the MS-DOS emulator DOSBox.
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Example
The following renames file foo to bar.
> ren foo bar
The following renames a file specified by a fully qualified path. The first parameter may contain drive and path information, but the second parameter must be only a file name.
> rename "C:\Users\Public\Videos\Sample Videos\Wildlife.wmv" Wildlife2.wmv
The following removes abcd of a file name in Command Prompt based on the following rules:
- Same number of
/as the number of characters to remove - Requries double quotes for both arguments
- Won't remove
.from a file name
> rename "abcd*.txt" "////*.txt"
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See also
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Guide to Windows Commands
References
Further reading
External links
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