index.md

About

Last Updated [09/09/2019]
Created by OSU Maps and Spatial Data

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Renaming Files with Python
• Conclusion
• Further Reading/Resources

Introduction

Renaming Files with Python

Simple Python scripts can be used for a variety of tasks. Today, we will be learning how to use Python to rename multiples files within a folder.

1. To get started, locate the folder that contains the files you wish to rename and open your prefered Python 3 coding terminal.
2. Next, in the terminal, we must use import os in order to begin working with our files.

  import os

3. We will use chdir to change the current working directory to a different path. Within the parenthesis, paste or type the path to your folder.

  os.chdir(r'C:\Users\mapstu\Documents\ExampleRename')

4. To make sure we are working in the correct area, we will use a print function. It should return the pathway to your file. It is important to use print before we execute anything in order to check our work before it's too late.

  print(os.getcwd())
C:\Users\mapstu\Documents\ExampleRename

5. Let's do another check to make sure we're grabbing the right files. For this, we will use a different function. When you execute this, you should see all of your files.

  for f in os.listdir():
    print(f)

6. To make editing file names easier in the long run, we will split the file name from the extension. When this function runs, you should see your file names separate from the file extension.

  for f in os.listdir():
    print(os.path.splitext(f))

7. To use this function, we will change it up just slightly. This splits the file names from the extensions. Using the print function simply helps us visualize the file names without any extra text.

  for f in os.listdir():
    file_name, file_ext = os.path.splitex(f)
    print(file_name)

![File Names}(images/Names.PNG)

8. While we have cleaned up quite a bit, it would be beneficial to isolate the different parts of the file names, such as the name of the month, the category ("Months") and the number associated with each month. To do this, we will split the text further. Luckily for us, we can use - as an easy split location.

  for f in os.listdir():
    file_name, file_ext = os.path.splitex(f)
    print(file_name.split('-'))

9. Let's execute the above code and double check it. In the last line print(f_title), you will also want to test print(f_category) and print(f_num). Running these separately will show just one element at a time.

  for f in os.listdir():
    file_name, file_ext = os.path.splitex(f)
    f_title, f_category, f_num = file_name.split('-')
    print(f_title)

10. Let's test how it would look to rearrange the file names where the number comes first, followed by the category, name and then extension.

  for f in os.listdir():
    file_name, file_ext = os.path.splitex(f)
    f_title, f_category, f_num = file_name.split('-')
    print('{}-{}-{}{}'.format(f_num, f_category, f_title, f_ext))

11. If you notice any odd white space in your file names, you can use strip to get rid of it.

  for f in os.listdir():
    file_name, file_ext = os.path.splitex(f)
    f_title, f_category, f_num = file_name.split('-')
    f_title = f_title.strip()
    f_category = f_category.strip()
    f_num = f_num.strip()
    print('{}-{}-{}{}'.format(f_num, f_category, f_title, f_ext))

12. One thing that may happen with our numbers is that 1 and 10 will be put next to each other. We can fix this with zfill.

  for f in os.listdir():
    file_name, file_ext = os.path.splitex(f)
    f_title, f_category, f_num = file_name.split('-')
    f_title = f_title.strip()
    f_category = f_category.strip()
    f_num = f_num.strip().zfill(2)
    print('{}-{}-{}{}'.format(f_num, f_category, f_title, f_ext))

13. Our file names are looking much better, but I think the category makes it a bit redundant. Let's get rid of it.

  for f in os.listdir():
    file_name, file_ext = os.path.splitex(f)
    f_title, f_category, f_num = file_name.split('-')
    f_title = f_title.strip()
    f_category = f_category.strip()
    f_num = f_num.strip().zfill(2)
    print('{}-{}-{}{}'.format(f_num, f_title, f_ext))

14. Finally, we can rename our files!

  for f in os.listdir():
    file_name, file_ext = os.path.splitex(f)
    f_title, f_category, f_num = file_name.split('-')
    f_title = f_title.strip()
    f_category = f_category.strip()
    f_num = f_num.strip().zfill(2)
    new_name = '{}-{}-{}{}'.format(f_num, f_title, f_ext)
    os.rename(f, new_name)

Conclusion

Further Reading/Resources

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