Re: How to change a filename

[Rob Whitlock <rwhitlock22%gmail.com@localhost>]

> On Aug 4, 2024, at 4:23 AM, Todd Gruhn <tgruhn2%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> 
> I have a large file with " " inside of it.
> 
> How do I change is name to something  shorter -- then I
> can use emacs on it?

A large file or a large file name?

Changing a file name works the same regardless of whether the file is large or small.

If the file name is long, there are a few tricks you can use to make it so you don't have to type in all the characters. You can use double quotes or backslash escapes to denote the spaces, and tab completion or file globbing to specify long unique parts of the file name.

For example, if you had a directory with file names

long file name, long unique part.txt
long file name, this is a unique part too!.txt
long file name, also unique!.txt

you could specify the second one with the pattern

*"a unique part"*

As the above example shows, you can start and end quotes within the same argument; it doesn't need to cover the whole argument.