Find replace text in filenames

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I have several thousand files which need a - in the filenames changed to a .

Despite searching the help menus and forums the only solution I can find is to buy and download an application.

Surely it cannot be this difficult, I could have done this in about 2 minutes on a PC instead of which I have spent the past 2 days looking for a solution. Is there no way that I can do a find/replace on a mac?
 
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Actually I have now tried a free application to do this and it wont rename the files because they are in sub folders.
 
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chas_m

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Periods in the filename (at the beginning, anyway) make the file invisible. It's a UNIX thing.

Periods elsewhere in the filename usually mark the end of the name and the beginning of the extension.

So this does not sound like a wise plan to me.

But to answer your question, yes it is possible to do this quite easily ... using the terminal.
 
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Mac Mini (Late 2014) 2.6GHz Intel Core i5 Memory: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3
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I could have done this in about 2 minutes on a PC instead of which I have spent the past 2 days looking for a solution. Is there no way that I can do a find/replace on a mac?
You could switch back to Windows,

Periods in the filename (at the beginning, anyway) make the file invisible. It's a UNIX thing.

yes it is possible to do this quite easily ... using the terminal.
or learn something new.

This is not a common task for 99% of computer users.
 

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