I needed to rename a bunch of files in natural sorting (e.g. FILENAME1 – FILENAME999), but needed the preceding zeroes such that file systems would read them in a natural order. This script will rename all files of the same name with a substituted filename string which are ordered 001, 002, 003 –> Infinite. If you have >999 filenames, change zfill(2) to the corresponding number of zeroes required.
#renames all files in a directory Participant Data X except for script itself
# ---------------------------------------------------------
# natsort.py: Natural string sorting.
# ---------------------------------------------------------
# http://code.activestate.com/recipes/285264/
# Adapted from Seo Sanghyeon. Some changes by Connelly Barnes.
# This specific script adapted by Micah Wilson
import os
def try_int(s):
"Convert to integer if possible."
try: return int(s)
except: return s
def natsort_key(s):
"Used internally to get a tuple by which s is sorted."
import re
return map(try_int, re.findall(r'(d+|D+)', s))
def natcmp(a, b):
"Natural string comparison, case sensitive."
return cmp(natsort_key(a), natsort_key(b))
def natcasecmp(a, b):
"Natural string comparison, ignores case."
return natcmp(a.lower(), b.lower())
def natsort(seq, cmp=natcmp):
"In-place natural string sort."
seq.sort(cmp)
def natsorted(seq, cmp=natcmp):
"Returns a copy of seq, sorted by natural string sort."
import copy
temp = copy.copy(seq)
natsort(temp, cmp)
return temp
# Example
files = os.listdir('.')
natsort(files)
index = 0
for filename in files:
if filename.startswith("filenamedescription"):
os.rename(filename, 'NewFilename'+' '+str(index).zfill(2))
index += 1
For usage, change the file name starting variable in filenamedescription. If you require a more advanced filename search, I suggest using re.search or similar regex packages.