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I'm attempting to rename a bunch of mp3's (as my portable player won't play
them in order properly)
From
1-name.mp3
to
01-name.mp3

Obviously, I'm only looking to do this for tracks 1-9

My problem is that

ren ?-* 0?-*.mp3
gives me a "file in use" error.

Ok: workaround, run it individually for ?=1 to 9
(ie)
ren 1-* 01-*.mp3
ren 2-* 02-*.mp3
(etc)

This however overwrites the first letters of the name (and drops the suffix
if the .mp3 isn't appended)
ie from 1-name.mp3 to 01-ame.mp3

I'm obviously doing something simple (I hope wrong: can anyone assist in
making this work properly?

OS's: Win98 and XP

Oh: if possible, any thoughts on how I can get this to run in subfolders of
the parent "music" folder?
Any and all pointers _very_ welcomed!
Thanks
-P

Pleb Plebian wrote:
> I'm attempting to rename a bunch of mp3's (as my portable player won't play
> them in order properly)
> From
> 1-name.mp3
> to
> 01-name.mp3
>
> Obviously, I'm only looking to do this for tracks 1-9
>
> My problem is that
>
> ren ?-* 0?-*.mp3
> gives me a "file in use" error.
>
> Ok: workaround, run it individually for ?=1 to 9
> (ie)
> ren 1-* 01-*.mp3
> ren 2-* 02-*.mp3
> (etc)
>
> This however overwrites the first letters of the name (and drops the suffix
> if the .mp3 isn't appended)
> ie from 1-name.mp3 to 01-ame.mp3
>
> I'm obviously doing something simple (I hope wrong: can anyone assist in
> making this work properly?
>
> OS's: Win98 and XP
>
> Oh: if possible, any thoughts on how I can get this to run in subfolders of
> the parent "music" folder?
> Any and all pointers _very_ welcomed!

I'm running FreeBSD at the moment so I can't throw together a script to
test this, but the way I'd look to do it would be using 'for', using '-'
as the delimiter, then simply checking appending '0' to the front if the
value is less than 10.

Something like...

for /f "delims=- tokens=1,* " %%a in ('dir /b *.mp3') do (
if "%%a" lss 10 (set pad=0) else set pad=
ren %%a-%%b %pad%%%a
)

Of course this is full of errors, but it might give you an idea of where
to start.

Sub-folders should also be possible, but I'd tend to do this by calling
a script for each directory, found using 'dir /b /s /a:d'.

The Other Guy

The Other Guy wrote:
> Something like...
>
> for /f "delims=- tokens=1,* " %%a in ('dir /b *.mp3') do (
> if "%%a" lss 10 (set pad=0) else set pad=
> ren %%a-%%b %pad%%%a
> )

You would need to use !pad! and enabled delayed variable expansion to
get this to work.

The Other Guy

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 14:40:21 +1300, "Pleb Plebian"
<> wrote:

>I'm attempting to rename a bunch of mp3's (as my portable player won't play
>them in order properly)
>From
>1-name.mp3
>to
>01-name.mp3
>
>Obviously, I'm only looking to do this for tracks 1-9
>
Do a google search for "1-4a Rename". This is a great program fro
multiple renames under win 98, 2k and XP.

Cheers, Kiwi

Thanks Kiwi!
Not the solution I was heading towards-but very effective and
appreciated: it'll do the trick
Much appreciated also, Other Guy: will have a play with your
suggestions and hopefully learn along the way
Cheers
-P

Kiwi wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 14:40:21 +1300, "Pleb Plebian"
> <> wrote:
>
>> I'm attempting to rename a bunch of mp3's (as my portable player
>> won't play them in order properly)
>> From
>> 1-name.mp3
>> to
>> 01-name.mp3
>>
>> Obviously, I'm only looking to do this for tracks 1-9
>>
> Do a google search for "1-4a Rename". This is a great program fro
> multiple renames under win 98, 2k and XP.

I went to download this and got asked if I want to over-write. I already
have it, must have read someone else recommend it and downloaded it then.
Haven't needed it yet. However, I have a ~4GB folder full of apps and
utilities I've downloaded over the years and moved from PC to PC.

Actually, thanks for the reminder. Now I have a DVD writer I must write the
folder to disc. I used to with CD-Rs but the folder got too big to fit on
one CD-R a couple years ago. There's some old stuff in there, downloaded
mobo manuals for just about every mobo I ever worked on that I didn't have a
hard-copy manual for, multple drivers, especially modem drivers... The list
goes on.

Cheers,
--
~misfit~