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Bulk converting month from %b to %m format within file name

PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 8:24 am
by fiddly bits
The Bulk Rename Utility is the greatest thing since sliced bread! I use it all the time, especially with files peeled from a number of cameras where the EXIF date taken is used to rename the file and preserve the number sequence.

I like to sort things in my file lists.

This means any dates have to be in YYYYMMDD format.

I often also get files that have either American format as
1: "July 8th 2012" or
2: "Jul 08 2012"
in their file name - no wonder America is so unloved in the rest of the world! :evil: April is not the first month of the year! :roll:

The first format frustrates me as the month lengths are not all the same, so I cannot just do a quick delete, shuffle, and add.

The second format involves a shuffle, but the month is still in alphabetical, not numeric format.

Is there an inbuilt function that will peel off the %b format in a file name and convert it into a %m? I hate having to perform twelve operations, once for each month name and number. This defeats the purpose of having the utility.

Should there be an "American to ISO format" converter option that automagically does this for us?

If it becomes an additional 'date' box on the utility, I would also like a configuration option to change the date and time format to convert to "YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS" (with the dashes and periods) as that seems to be easier on my eye and still preserves the sort ability. Others may wish to select different delimiters for the date and time commensurate with their Windows preferences, and this should be configurable and stored between invocations.

If it is a PCRE string I need, can we have it built in so I don't have to remember it each time?

(Sorry if this has been asked before, but my search didn't seem to find it. I'll be suitably chastised if it is documented elsewhere in the user manual which I have also searched)

Re: Bulk converting month from %b to %m format within file name

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:24 pm
by fiddly bits
No takers?

Re: Bulk converting month from %b to %m format within file name

PostPosted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 12:06 am
by fiddly bits
Still no takers?

Re: Bulk converting month from %b to %m format within file name

PostPosted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 9:34 am
by fiddly bits
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3092 seems to do it.

Re: Bulk converting month from %b to %m format within file name

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 1:08 am
by therube
ISO format

For reference, ISO 8601.

Re: Bulk converting month from %b to %m format within file name

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 4:51 am
by fiddly bits
All the above are great pointers and reference for whoever is writing updates for the software, but don't actually convert the alphabetic months into numeric months.

This still remains an outstanding item on my humble wish list.

Re: Bulk converting month from %b to %m format within file name

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 7:06 am
by Admin
Hi , this conversion can be done with a Javascript function. You would parse the date in any format and re-write in any format using Javascript. Javascript functionality requires a commercial license however. thanks

Re: Bulk converting month from %b to %m format within file name

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 7:28 am
by fiddly bits
Thanks. I'll start saving my pennies.

Re: Bulk converting month from %b to %m format within file name

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 9:27 am
by Admin
OK. BTW I have added this feature request to our list of possible improvements for future releases.

Re: Bulk converting month from %b to %m format within file name

PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2022 1:40 pm
by fiddly bits
Necropost: Did this ever happen?

Convert month-text into month-numbers

PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2022 8:16 pm
by Luuk
Greetings Fiddly, this some links where Im describing something similiar, but with different date-formats...
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5314
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5449#p14731
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3092&start=30

I can advise this format also, but the examples do only present date-formats, without having any time-format examples.
So its not possible to advise on how to match the times, when these times might also be inside of the filenames?