@stacksofplates

works exactly as intended, my sincere appreciation.. Now I have to try and understand, the syntax
and what I missed. All I had to do was change prename to rename ( Debian distro)
thanks, kindly

@DustinB3403 I went to a windows box, had some errors, sorted all of them except this one. I put in the command I used.
any assistance is greatly appreciated.

the error message first
At line:1 char:154

• ... '-'} -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable daError) if ($daErr ...

•                                                            ~~
  

Unexpected token 'if' in expression or statement.
+ CategoryInfo : ParserError: (:) [], ParentContainsErrorRecordException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnexpectedToken

and the command I used is,

(Get-ChildItem -Path "D:\bradford_temp" -Recurse | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.Name -replace '~','-'} -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable daError) if ($daError.Exception.Message -match " Source and destination path must be different.") { Write-Output "ERROR - There was an error. Pay Attention : [$daError]" }

@Grey where does the destination path go from the above script by DustinB3403

@Grey interesting, Has anybody tried it ? It seems to me that powershell syntax is much longer than linux,
my powershell knowledge is quite limited, but may not stay that way........

thank you

@DustinB3403 I just may transfer to a windows box, and use your script, just for the powershell experience.
I will let you know. thanks again

@DustinB3403 I looked at similar. I had to do this a few years back and saved the command lines, then I started 'boning' up again, (today), I thought I had it. but obviously, I did something wrong. I was taking the easy route ( so I thought). The brain isn't working as well as I want today. LOL

@pattonb it is a solution, and I appreciate the input, and I just may, if the frustration gets too high.
thank you

@pattonb if need be I could transfer the files, ( about 50gb), but would rather not.

@DustinB3403 thanks, but this is on a linux server.

struggling with renaming 35k files. they all have a '~' at the end of the name, ie. blahblah.xls~, blahblah.docx~, etc.

I thought rename would do the job, but I have something incorrect with the syntax, or I don't know what I am doing.
The files are in many sub directories, all differing in depth. I tried the following, any suggestions ?

find . -iname ".~" | rename -n 's/.~$//' . mmm

weird, the window wasn't showing the last part of the command, so I added the 'm', so the '.' would show up ignore the m's

but no action. sigh