Re: echo/sed combination inserts extra characters

[Carl Johnson <carlj@peak.org>]

Jesus Arocho <jesus_arocho@comcast.net> writes:

> I want to rename a series of photo files downloaded from a camera; the intent 
> is to append the date to the beginning of the file name.  The relevant lines 
> are:
> 
> newdir=`date +%F | sed 's/-//g'` #newdir used to make the directory and to 
> rename the files.
> 
> new=̈́`echo $i | sed -e 's/_//'` # strip the current file name of the underline 
      ^<<==  there is an extra character
> in the middle dsc_0001.jpg to dsc0001.jpg
> 
> mv -f $i $newdir'_'$new  #rename the current file
> 
> The resulting file name may contain an extraneous character (does not print) 
> located just after the _ ; as if the echo/sed combination had added a 
> character.  The processing continues because the loop is selecting all jpg or 
> nef files, but trying to do something with the file from the command line 
> results in file not found.  I can see the extra character in konqueror.

This is a little late, and several other people already have made
suggestions, but my system does show an extra character.  I don't know
if it was accidentally added when you transfered it into your message,
but you might want to check for the character between the 'new=' and
the backquote.  It is barely visible to me, and it looks like it would
be just after the underscore as you reported, so maybe that is it.

I checked, and the 'unicode' command reports the character is:

U+0344 COMBINING GREEK DIALYTIKA TONOS 
UTF-8: cd 84   UTF-16BE: 0344   Decimal: &#836;
̈́
Category: Mn (Mark, Non-Spacing)
Bidi: NSM (Non-Spacing Mark)
Combining: 230 (Above)
Decomposition: 0308 0301


-- 
Carl Johnson		carlj@peak.org