rename files using "system" function

I want to rename my files using the "rename" command in "system" function like this:

oldname = 'Michael_Jackson-Beat_It.mp3"
newname = 'Michael Jackson - Beat It.mp3"
system(['rename ' oldname ' ' newname]);

I'm producing the "newname"s automatically from the oldnames and doing this in a huge for loop.

But it doesn't work when there's a space in the name strings, I think due to the "rename" command... How can I solve this problem?

thanks,

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

oldname = 'Michael_Jackson-Beat_It.mp3'
newname = 'Michael Jackson - Beat It.mp3'
copyfile(oldname,newname)

[Walter Roberson]

It would be movefile() rather than copyfile()

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

system(['rename ''' oldname ''' ''' newname '''']);

[Jan]

Under Windows I'd prefer the double quotes:

system(['rename "' oldname '" "' newname '"']);

[Walter Roberson]

Under non-Windows systems, if the file names contained dollar-signs, the dollar-signs would trigger substitution (or other effects) inside of double-quotes but not inside of single-quotes. For example,

copy "foo.bar" "foo-$PWD"

would trigger PWD to be expanded rather than being treated as a literal string.