dateformat change in filename

I have a lot of files with their filenames being a date in the format of DDMMYYYY with extention .xls (example: “12012006.xls” with that date being 12 januari 2006)

Now that date is useless to me and I would like to rename them to YYYYMMDD with extention .xls (the same). The example from above would change into “20060112.xls”

Does anyone know of a automator automation that can change the dateformat? Or know a script that could do this?

any help would be very greatfull!

I wasn’t sure if I should put this in the Automator forum or the Applescript forum. Sorry.

Tom

you can use an Automator workflow with “Get Selected Finder Items” and the following AppleScript.
Please note that this script is very simple. There is no error trapping or checking the right format.
The filename is always expected in the same format (DDMMYYYY)

on run {input, parameters}
	repeat with i in input
		tell application "Finder" to set {fName, ext} to {name, name extension} of i
		set yr to text 5 thru 8 of fName
		set mn to text 3 thru 4 of fName
		set dy to text 1 thru 2 of fName
		tell application "Finder" to set name of i to yr & mn & dy & "." & ext
	end repeat
return input
end run

or an AppleScript droplet:

on open theseFiles
	repeat with i in theseFiles
		tell application "Finder" to set {fName, ext} to {name, name extension} of i
		set yr to text 5 thru 8 of fName
		set mn to text 3 thru 4 of fName
		set dy to text 1 thru 2 of fName
		tell application "Finder" to set name of i to yr & mn & dy & "." & ext
	end repeat
end open

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