Relative renumber, relatively ruined

I have tons of filenames which contain number elements keyed "xx-xxx-xx", e.g. "01-200-01". The first two digits are the number to be increased by '1', relative to the existing number.

"Advanced" Renamer is unable to comply, complaining about "possible duplicate filenames" and without a chance to further specify or force-apply my (correct) settings. There are *no* filename conflicts, AR is moaning around for nothing. Solution?

Here an example of a few filenames (you may want to batch-create text files and test it!)

excerpt 04-200-01.txt -> "excerpt 05-200-01.txt", etc. etc.
excerpt 04-400-01.txt
excerpt 05-200-01.txt
excerpt 06-200-01.txt
excerpt 07-200-01.txt
excerpt 08-200-01.txt
excerpt 08-400-01.txt
excerpt 08-600-01.txt
excerpt 09-200-01.txt
excerpt 09-200-02.txt
excerpt 09-400-01.txt
excerpt 09-900-01.txt
excerpt 09-900-02.txt
excerpt 10-200-01.txt
excerpt 11-200-01.txt
excerpt 12-200-01.txt
excerpt 12-200-02.txt
excerpt 13-200-01.txt
excerpt 13-400-01.txt
excerpt 14-200-01.txt
excerpt 15-200-01.txt
excerpt 15-400-01.txt
excerpt 16-200-01.txt
excerpt 17-200-01.txt
excerpt 17-400-01.txt
excerpt 18-200-01.txt
excerpt 18-400-01.txt -> "excerpt 19-400-01.txt"

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Reply to #1:

ARen is rightfully "moaning" because when you change 04-200-01 to 05-200-01, there already exists a file named 05-200-01 in the same folder as the file whose name you are trying to change.

I think what you need to do is load the largest numbered files first (the 18-xxx-xx batch in your example), change those, and make your way to 01. This way 05 would have already been changed to 06 by the time you get to 04. You can use the "Mask" option under Add > Directory to do this instead of manually selecting the files.

Another option, is to pad a zero to the first number using the Renumber method.

Number Position = 1
Number Difference = 1
Zero Padding = Manual
Number Length = 3

This way 04-200-01 would be changed to 004-200-01, and there would be no conflict with existing file names. Then in second pass, remove the padded zero using

Number Position = 1
Number Difference = 0
Zero Padding = Manual
Number Length = 2

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Reply to #2:

"... ARen is rightfully "moaning" because when you change 04-200-01 to 05-200-01, there already exists a file named 05-200-01 in the same folder as the file whose name you are trying to change. ..."

Excuse me. I can see what you are pointing at but we have 2019. Even tools NOT specifically geared for renaming (TotalCommander or DoubleCommander come into mind) have been fully capable of bulk renaming potentially conflicting files and folders for (well) over a decade. And yes, even DOS Norton Commander could do it (admitted, hack required). In fact coders have known temp tables far longer than that; I even used temp renaming tables under COBOL (yes, I'm that old).

Your tips in honor, but shouldn't ARen do all that automatically? If a program calling itself "Advanced" Renamer still can not be used for such simple tasks then it is simply not for me; the name obviously does not refer to its capabilities or features.

Thanks for all.

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Reply to #3:
@Turtle, "shouldn't ARen do all that automatically?"

Me think, "Advanced" doesn't meant necessarily "clever / smart".
And I still prefer to have control on my own over a renaming process.
"automatically" CAN be nice to have, but for other renaming tasks one would wonder... WTH?
So yes, sometimes you have to do several steps to achieve ones goal ;-)


Just MHO

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Reply to #1:
The solution in this case is merely a single mouse-click!

Once you have populated the list, left click on "Filename" and the filenames will be re-ordered in decreasing order of the first number. As if by magic - all your errors will disappear!

This should have been blindingly obvious if you had spent more time thinking about how the program works than directing abuse at the author!

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Reply to #5: @David_Lee:

If you had cared to read my problem description instead of gearing up to flame me, you would have seen that this is NOT a matter related with a re-order of the files list. It is the incapability of ARen to handle certain numbering aspects. Also, I did not "directly abuse the author" but questioned program capabilities, admitted, in a direct way.

You tried to flame me and made a real fool of yourself in the process. Read again what I wrote. The author of this program made something which did not match my needs. I can't yell at him for that. You on the other hand tried to play big pants and failed. You exposed yourself far better than I could ever do, thanks for the laugh.

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Reply to #6:
That's funny. Maybe I'm missing something but when I tried David_Lee's trick on files I created using your filenames it worked for me. excerpt 04-200-01.txt became excerpt 05-200-01.txt, etc. even though there was already an existing excerpt 05-200-01.txt.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just used the "renumber" method with these parameters:

Number Position: 1
Change to: Relative to existing number
Number difference: 1
Zero Padding: Manual
Number length: 2
Apply to: Name

clicked on Filename so as to reverse-order them, and voila. AREN processes in the order specified (apparently), eliminating the existing-filename problem.

Like I said, I may be missing something, but from where I sit I'd say you, Mr. Turtle, owe Mr. Lee (and maybe Stefan) an apology.

Just my $0.02...

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Reply to #3:
We are not yet living in an AI-enabled era, even though Google/Siri/Cortana are good at giving one the impression they are. Jarvis from IronMan is still decades away. Till then we will need to put some effort to learn and implement feature-rich tools manually to our advantage.

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