For an example, you want to rename all '.html' to '.htm', you can input '.html'* in the replace box and '.htm' in the with box, then rename it.
If you want to rename .html and .shtml to .htm, you can check up the regular expression box and input .(s)?html
* No single quotes need when you input.
Some softwares may generate long file name, and some downloaded files also have long names. (There are often long names in mp3, pictures, zip files, etc.) Those long names may be necessary in store, but meaningless for us and difficult to read, so we want to shorten them.
Check up regular expression box, and write a regular expression in the replace box, the file names will be altered as the discipline you set.
For example, if your have all mp3 of a album, but every file have a long name with the name of the author and the album, such as
It's very simple, just input 'Pink_Floyd_The_Wall_' in the replace box, and leave the with box empty(that means delete the replacing pattern). if you don't want all '_', you can input a '_' in the replace box to replace again, then the file name may become:
Another example with the same album, maybe the files are like this:
Here, we can use regular expression. Check up the regular expression box, then input '\d+_(.+).mp3', and input '$1.mp3' in the with box. if you are no familiar with regular expression, please search a lesson on the web.
Some user may want to create chm ebook from from downloaded web pages which they garnered. But the page file names maybe different, such as
'(\w+|0| )*([1-9]+)' means all words and 0 (or nothing) before first effective number, such as 'Chapter' or '0' of '02' will be removed, but the number of chapter, such as 10, or 101 will be reserved.
'.html*' means .htm or ,html, '*' mean the last expression exist or no here.
Maybe you meet some other situation, but with regular expression and your intelligence, you can work it out. If you need advanced regular expression in your replacement but you are not an expert of it, please read some books about it.
You can get more examples and lessons from my website or the forum, I will write more if I have time, and there will be other users who would like to share or communicate their experiences.
Here's the link of my website
Wonder Studio
July 2008