How do I rename all folders and files to lowercase on Linux?

Question

I have to rename a complete folder tree recursively so that no uppercase letter appears anywhere (it's C++ source code, but that shouldn't matter).

Bonus points for ignoring CVS and Subversion version control files/folders. The preferred way would be a shell script, since a shell should be available on any Linux box.

There were some valid arguments about details of the file renaming.

1. I think files with the same lowercase names should be overwritten; it's the user's problem. When checked out on a case-ignoring file system, it would overwrite the first one with the latter, too.

2. I would consider A-Z characters and transform them to a-z, everything else is just calling for problems (at least with source code).

3. The script would be needed to run a build on a Linux system, so I think changes to CVS or Subversion version control files should be omitted. After all, it's just a scratch checkout. Maybe an "export" is more appropriate.

Answer 1

Smaller still I quite like:

rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/' *

On case insensitive filesystems such as OS X's HFS+, you will want to add the -f flag:

rename -f 'y/A-Z/a-z/' *