Debugging Perl one-liner for renaming files

Question

I was testing/trying out this Perl one-liner, and I'm trying to figure out what happened to the files. I don't see the files anymore. Did I delete them or what went wrong? Example of file names listed (original): ``` IMG_0178.JPG IMG_0182.JPG IMG_0183.JPG IMG_0184.JPG IMG_0186.JPG ``` I wanted to simply change the file extension to lowercase (.jpg): ``` perl -e'while(<*.JPG>) { s/JPG$/jpg/; rename <*.jpg>, $_ }' ```

Accepted Answer

Don't use `rename` with a glob. Use scalars. Try to assign the file name to a new variable before the substitution and rename the old name to the modified one, like this:

```
perl -e'while(<*.JPG>) { ($new = $_) =~ s/JPG$/jpg/; rename $_, $new }'
```

Check output with `ls -1`:

```
IMG_0178.jpg                                                                                                     
IMG_0182.jpg                                                                                                
IMG_0183.jpg                                                                                              
IMG_0184.jpg                                                                                               
IMG_0186.jpg
```

Debugging Perl one-liner for renaming files

Solution

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