Ren (command)


ren is a shell command for renaming a file and in some implementations a directory.
Some shells with also provide a move command that provides for moving between directories. On systems that do not support a move command, the user could copy a file to a new destination and then delete the original file. In DOSBox, ren can move files.
The command is in various shells such as COMMAND.COM, Command Prompt, 4DOS, 4NT and PowerShell. In MS-DOS, the command is available in versions 1 and later. In PowerShell, ren is a predefined alias for the Rename-Item Cmdlet which serves the same essential purpose.
Similar commands are available in many operating systems. The command is available in the CP/M, MP/M, Cromemco DOS, TRIPOS, OS/2, ReactOS, SymbOS, and DexOS. Multics includes a rename command to rename a directory entry, which could be contracted to rn. A command which in some cases can be contracted to ren is provided in Stratus VOS, RT-11, OS/8, RSX-11, ISIS-II, iRMX 86, TOPS-20, Z80-RIO, FLEX, OS-9, FlexOS, 4690 OS, MPE/iX, THEOS/OASIS, and OpenVMS A rename command is supported by 86-DOS. DR DOS 6.0 includes and commands. PC-MOS includes an implementation of rename. It is also available in the MS-DOS emulator DOSBox.

Example

The following renames file to.

> ren foo bar

The following renames a file specified by a fully qualified path. The first parameter may contain drive and path information, but the second parameter must be only a file name.

> rename "C:\Users\Public\Videos\Sample Videos\Wildlife.wmv" Wildlife2.wmv

The following removes abcd of a file name in Command Prompt based on the following rules:
  • Same number of / as the number of characters to remove
  • Requries double quotes for both arguments
  • Won't remove . from a file name

> rename "abcd*.txt" "////*.txt"