ReNamer:Rules:Replace

Replace Rule

This rule removes the specified string from the name and replaces it with another string. It has options to replace the first occurrence, the last occurrence, or all the occurrences. You can replace multiple strings at a time. You can also use wildcards to create simple patterns.

The parameters are as follows:

Parameter	Details
Find	Enter the string to be replaced. You can enter multiple strings at a time. They will be searched & replaced in the order as they appear. Press the + button to insert a separator between two strings. Instead of pressing this button, you can also enter *|* from the keyboard. If the name does not contain the specified string, the rule will not act on it. If the name contains more than one of these strings, it will replace them according to the Occurrences parameter.
button	Inserts a separator (*|*) sequence between two delimiter entries. In that case, the nth entry in the Find field is replaced by the nth entry in the Replace field.
Replace	Enter strings that will replace the "Find" strings. Note that the number of strings (separated with *|*) in "Find" and "Replace" fields should be the same. If there is more strings in the "Find" field than in the "Replace" field the spare strings will be removed (replaced with an empty string). If there is more strings in the "Replace" field, the spare strings will be ignored.
Insert meta tag	Click the button to see a list of meta-tags.
Occurrences	In case that strings occur more than once in the filename, specify which occurrences should be replaced.
Skip extension	If checked, the file extension will be excluded from the processing and will remain unaffected.
Case sensitive	Will only remove a specified string from the name if the case matches exactly.
Whole words only	Remove the subject text only when it is whole word, not a part of another word. For example, searching for "bar" would not find a match in "foobar" or "bars".
Interpret symbols as wild cards	Treat certain symbols as Wildcards for matching simple patterns (similar to Regular Expressions).

Wildcards

Wildcard	Represents	Example
*	any number of characters (including numbers, space, underscores, etc.).	abc* equals abc followed by 0 or more characters.
?	Any single character (including numbers, space, underscores, etc.)	ab?d equals abcd, ab1d, ab d, ab_d, etc.
[]	Brackets enclose a set of characters, any one of which may match a single character at that position.	foo[ab]ar equals fooaar and foobar
-	(only within a pair of brackets) denotes a range of characters.	foo[a-z]ar equals fooaar, foobar, foocar, foodar, etc.

Backreferences allow for reuse of wildcard matches in the Replace field using the $N notation, where $1 is the first wildcard match, $2 is second, and so on.

Examples of the use of backreferences:

Find	Replace	Example Input	Produced Output
*, *	$2 $1	Smith, John	John Smith
Happy ?-th birthday *	$2 is $1 years old	Happy 5-th birthday Bob	Bob is 5 years old

Beware of conflicting replacements

If you enter multiple find and replace strings they will be executed as multiple Replace rules, so first string will go first and only after replacing all (or first, or last) occurrences of that string the second string in the Find field will be searched and replaced.

Find Replace A*|*B B*|*A

Name New Name ABBA.mp3 AAAA.mp3

You may expect the new name to be BAAB.mp3, but it's not. This happens because first all A's are replaced with B's (we get BBBB.mp3) and only then all B's are replaced with A's (and the final result is AAAA.mp3).

If you need to apply character-to-character mappings you should use Translit rule.