Bug#1003653: Revision of removal of rename.ul from package util-linux
Chris Hofstaedtler <zeha@debian.org> writes:
> If the util-linux rename should be made easier to use, then it should
> become the one and only provider of /usr/bin/rename, and it should not
> be in an essential package.
The two programs are very, very different, and I suspect the util-linux
version would not be suitable for what /usr/bin/rename is currently used
for inside Debian.
For those who aren't familiar with the history of this, the Perl version
which is currently installed as /usr/bin/rename takes argibrary Perl code
applies it to each file name to come up with the new file name. It
doesn't even have to be a regular expression; it can be a tiny Perl
program (and I have used it that way before). The util-linux rename only
does simple string substitution and has a completely different command
line syntax (it takes two strings as its first two arguments and then a
list of files, whereas the Perl rename takes a block of Perl code and then
a list of files).
They perform somewhat similar conceptual functions, but they're really
entirely different and incompatible programs that unfortunately for a
variety of historical reasons have ended up with the same name, not
versions of the same basic tool.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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