Bulk renaming using regex in Php - php

Question

I have a folder in a server with a lot of images and I would like to rename some images. Images that contain (1 example:
112345(1.jpg to 112345.jpg. How can I do this using regex in PHP? I have to mention that my knowledge of PHP is very limited and it's the only language that can effectively do the scripting.

Answer 1

preg_match('/\(1/', $entry) will help you.
Also, you need to pay attention to "what if the file has a duplicate after the rename".
$directory = "/path/to/images";
if ($handle = opendir($directory)) {
while (false !== ($entry = readdir($handle))) {
if ($entry != '.' && $entry != '..') {
// Check "(1"
if (preg_match('/\(1/', $entry)) {
// Rename file
$old = $directory . '/' . $entry;
$new = str_replace('(1', '', $old);
// Check duplicate
if (file_exists($new)) {
$extension = strrpos($new, '.');
$new = substr($new, 0, $extension) . rand() . substr($new, $extension); // Basic rand()
}
rename($old, $new);
}
}
}
closedir($handle);
}

Answer 2

If you want only remove some substring from images names you can do this without regex. Use str_replace function to replace substring to empty string.
As example:
$name = "112345(1.jpg";
$substring = "(1";
$result = str_replace($substring, "", $name);

Answer 3

You can use scandir and preg_grep to filter out the files that needs to be renamed.
$allfiles = scandir("folder"); // replace with folder with jpg files
$filesToRename = preg_grep("/\(1\.jpg/i", $allfiles);
Foreach($filesToRename as $file){
Echo $file . " " . Var_export(rename($file, str_replace("(1.", ".", $file));
}
This is untested code and in theory it should echo the filename and true/false if the rename worked or not.

Answer 4

Only use regex for this if you need to assert the position of the substring, e.g. if you have filenames like Copy (1)(1.23(1.jpg a simple string replacement will go wrong.
$re = '/^(.+)\(1(\.[^\\\\]+)$/';
$subst = '$1$2';
$directory = '/my/root/folder';
if ($handle = opendir($directory )) {
while (false !== ($fileName = readdir($handle))) {
$newName = preg_replace($re, $subst, $fileName);
rename($directory . $fileName, $directory . $newName);
}
closedir($handle);
}
The regular expression used searches for the part before and after the file extension, put the pieces into capturing groups, and glue them together again in the preg_replace without the (1.