Subject: bug#6823: 24.0.50; Wdired or Dired enhancement

From: "Drew Adams" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 07:16:01 -0700

> > AFAIK the best you can do now is to use Wdired and perform
> > query-replace with some fancy replacement expression.
> > We should offer something simpler for the common task of
> > renaming a sequence of files.
> 
> We have have two tools to achieve this, wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
> and query-replace-regexp used with \, and \# in the 
> replacement regexp.

That's exactly what I meant by "use Wdired and perform query-replace with some
fancy replacement expression."

I know that a user can do it.  What I suggest is that we also "offer something
simpler for the common task of renaming a sequence of files."

A Windows user need not be familiar with Lisp sexps (and especially arcane
incantations using `\,' and \#).  It's great to have that capability, but we
should also offer something simpler for the common, simple case.

> You can use also this function:(You may have to run it two 
> times in some rare cases)
>
>  (defun serial-rename (dir ext name start)...

I haven't tried it, but from the doc string, it sounds like the kind of thing I
had in mind.

The doc for Dired should mention such a command (which should be bound to a
key), and it should mention that you can do fancier, more flexible replacement
using query-replace with `\,', `\#', etc.