Shell-friendly alternative to parentheses in file names?

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: 1.18.7.2457-77cb9455c
Player Version#: N/A

This feels like it should be an FAQ, but I haven’t been able to find anything.

Is there any alternative to parentheses in movie file names that is more friendly to UNIX/Linux shells? (I’m already using underscores instead of spaces.)

Thanks!

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There is a very universal answer. It’s the Finger-Saver on Linux.

FileBot

It will handle all your renaming issues.
It will put them in the “perfect case and format with spaces” format in seconds.

FileBot runs in both command line and graphical modes

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Curiosity question from a non-Linux guy:
Do you have to ‘escape’ parentheses, just like you have to escape ‘space’ characters?

5

Yes. You do have to escape the parentheses.

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I adjusted my work-flow to use quotation marks whenever spaces or other “special” characters are involved, then you can write the normal characters also under linux. It’s not perfect, but works and is better than using the escape characters.

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There are three ways to escape parenthesis.

  1. Use "
  2. Use '
  3. Use \ 
mv MyTestMovie.mkv   "My Test Movie (2029).mkv"

Windows users will recognize the use of ". It’s been that way with “Program Files” for some time.

The order in which the 3 escaping methods is encountered determines how parsing is performed.

Example:

[chuck@lizum scripts.524]$ echo This isn\'t going to fail because  \\\'s are in charge
This isn't going to fail because \'s are in charge
[chuck@lizum scripts.525]$

and

[chuck@lizum scripts.543]$ echo "This name is valid (2020)"
This name is valid (2020)
[chuck@lizum scripts.544]$
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