Change the name of many files - regex

Question

How can I rename many files. Remove the digits at the beginning.
I have a Mac. All the files are in the same folder.
The pattern is:
1, 2 or 3 digits - any name.php
With Regular Expression, I think it would be:
\d*-(.*).php
For example:
1-marketing.php
2-3D.php
3-without.php
I want to remove the numbers and the dash at the beginning.
In the example it would be:
marketing.php
3D.php
without.php
What I have explored two ways:
Select the files > ctrl click > rename items. This is a fantastic method to change the name of files. But I think it cannot be used in this case. If I understand, it does not support Regex. Am I right?
Terminal. I am not very familiar with terminal. I tried mv 1-marketing.php marketing.php It works for 1 file, but how can I do the same for many? I am new with the terminal. If it can be done, please explain the basic.

Answer 1

Open the terminal app in Mac OS X and navigate to the folder containing the .php files
cd /my/path/to-php-files/
and run the below command on the command-line.
for file in *.php; do mv -v "$file" "${file#*-}"; done
The bash parameter expansion syntax ${file#*-} removes the characters before - from the beginning, so ideally 3-number-without.php becomes number-without.php
(or) use the perl rename utility not available by default in Mac OS, you can download and install it with homebrew 🍺:
brew install rename
and do
rename -n 's/^(\d+)-(.*)/$2/' *.php
The -n is just for a dry-run to see how the files are to be renamed, remove it as
rename 's/^(\d+)-(.*)/$2/' *.php
for the actual renaming.