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I received great help in this thread about using command "rename" on folders with trailing whitespaces that are also in subdirectories. How to use the command "rename" on subdirectories as well

Thanks again @pa4080 and @steeldriver and @pm-b

In general the solution requires to be executed several times, when folders with trailing whitespaces that are also nested in subdirectories

When I am using a proposed solution that was supposed to not require to execute the command several times but to do this automatically, I get an error message.

I was asked to post this question in a new thread. So here I go.

Command:

find . -depth -name '* ' -execdir rename -n 's/ *$//' {} +

File Structure ("Good" means no whitespace at end, "Bad" means whitespace at end:

|-FolderBad1 
  |  |-FolderGood1
  |  |-FolderBad2 
  |  |  |-FolderBad3 
  |-FolderGood
  |  |-Folder Good2
  |  |  |-FolderGood3
  |  |  |  |-FolderGood4
  |  |  |  |  |-FolderBad4 
  |  |  |  |  |-FolderBad5

Dry-Run (flag -n) gives this output as expected:

find . -depth -name '* ' -execdir rename -n 's/ *$//' {} +
'FolderBad3 ' would be renamed to 'FolderBad3'
'FolderBad2 ' would be renamed to 'FolderBad2'
'FolderBad1 ' would be renamed to 'FolderBad1'
'FolderBad5 ' would be renamed to 'FolderBad5'
'FolderBad4 ' would be renamed to 'FolderBad4'

Removing -n flag gives this error message:

find . -depth -name '* ' -execdir rename 's/ *$//' {} +
Can't rename 'FolderBad3 ' to 'FolderBad3': No such file or directory
Can't rename 'FolderBad2 ' to 'FolderBad2': No such file or directory
Can't rename 'FolderBad5 ' to 'FolderBad5': No such file or directory
Can't rename 'FolderBad4 ' to 'FolderBad4': No such file or directory

Running Dry-run again now:

find . -depth -name '* ' -execdir rename -n 's/ *$//' {} +
'FolderBad3 ' would be renamed to 'FolderBad3'
'FolderBad2 ' would be renamed to 'FolderBad2'
'FolderBad5 ' would be renamed to 'FolderBad5'
'FolderBad4 ' would be renamed to 'FolderBad4'

Rerunning the command without -n gives the same error message:

find . -depth -name '* ' -execdir rename 's/ *$//' {} +
Can't rename 'FolderBad3 ' to 'FolderBad3': No such file or directory
Can't rename 'FolderBad2 ' to 'FolderBad2': No such file or directory
Can't rename 'FolderBad5 ' to 'FolderBad5': No such file or directory
Can't rename 'FolderBad4 ' to 'FolderBad4': No such file or directory

So just the FolderBad1 was renamed but none of the other "Bad" folders in the subdirectories. So maybe it's the a similar question that I asked before already, how this command is applied to subdirectories.

Lots og text, I hope this clarified it.

Greetings, Chris

user822988
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