• You can use glob patterns in the find and replace strings. The special characters are the same as standard Houdini patterns, with the addition of # to mean a sequence of digits.

  *

  Matches any number of characters.

  #

  Matches one or more digits. For example, 1, 0005, or 50607.

  ?

  Matches any single character.

  [‹chars›]

  Matchs any of the characters in the brackets. For example, [abc] matches a, b, or c.

  [‹start›-‹end›]

  Matches any of the characters in the given range. For example, [a-z] matches any lower-case letter from a to z (inclusive).

  [!‹chars›]

  Negates a character set/range, so it matches any chars other than than characters in the set/range. For example, [!a-m] would match any characters other than lower-case letters from a to m. (Note this syntax is not available in regular Houdini globs.)

• The text matching a pattern (any group of special characters) in the Find text will be used to replace a corresponding pattern in the Replace text.

  Find	Replace
  left_*	right_*
  Before	After
  left_arm	right_arm
  left_foot	right_foot

• If the Find text has more than one pattern, they will replace corresponding patterns in the Replace text by position (for example, the first * in the Find will replace the first * in the Replace, the second will replace the second, and so on).

  Find	Replace
  *_alpha_*	*_beta_*
  Before	After
  lamp_alpha_matt	lamp_beta_matt
  window_alpha_lee	window_beta_lee

• If patterns have distinctive text, you can move them around and Houdini will match them up by the pattern text:

  Find	Replace
  *_???	old_???_* |
  Before	After
  lamp_esr	old_esr_lamp
  window_jwz	old_jwz_window

• You can use $1, $2, etc. in the Replace text to refer to the match of a pattern in the Find text by position. For example, $1 will be replaed with the match to the first pattern in the Find:

  Find	Replace
  *_*	$2_$1
  Before	After
  lamp_new	new_lamp
  window_final	final_window

  Tip

  When counting pattern positions, each of the following counts as one:

  • An asterisk (*)

  • A number sign (#)

  • One or more question marks (?)

  • One or more character ranges ([])

  So, for example, the Find text *#_??? has three patterns: *, #, and ???.

• You can negate part of the find pattern by putting ^ in front of it. This is mostly useful for excluding names that start with or end with a certain string. For example, ^beta_* matches names that don’t start with beta_.

  A ^ character will negate the next “part” of the pattern. Each of the following counts as a part:

  • One or more literal characters

  • An asterisk (*)

  • A number sign (#)

  • One or more question marks (?)

  • One or more character ranges ([])

  If you include a negative match in the find pattern, the find pattern must match the entire name (as if Match Whole Name was on).

  Note

  Negation works differently in the rename dialog than in regular Houdini globs, because the regular behavior isn’t very useful for renaming.

If you have a hou.Node reference to a node, you can change its name with hou.Node.setName:

>>> node = hou.node("/obj/geo1")
>>> node.setName("table_lamp")

To do a mass-rename in a script, you can use the nodeutils.rename_nodes() function:

from nodeutils import rename_nodes

success = rename_nodes(network, find, replace, selected=False, whole_name=False, errors=None,
                       fail_fast=False, unique_name=False, ignore_case=True)

The rename_nodes function takes the following arguments:

The rename_nodes function puts the renames in an undo block. You can undo the renames that succeeded with hou.undos.performUndo.