Rename script or ...?

[Dag von Arnold]

I am used to the VAX/VMS world. There I can do the following commands

rename foo.* bar.*
rename *.pas *.c

The first of these commands would rename all files beginning with 'foo.' 
to 'bar.' but retaining the suffixes from the input. The second command 
would only change the suffix.

How should I do this in UNIX? Is there a tool to use or do I have to write a 
script, and in that case, what should the script look like?


/Dag