In the Template example, there's no placeholder to be substituted with date. I think it should be rewritten along the following lines:

    >>> import time, os.path
    >>> photofiles = ['img_1074.jpg', 'img_1076.jpg', 'img_1077.jpg']
    >>> class BatchRename(Template):
    ...     delimiter = '%'
    >>> fmt = input('Enter rename style (%d-date %n-seqnum %f-format):  ')
    Enter rename style (%d-date %n-seqnum %f-format):  Ashley_%d%n%f

    >>> t = BatchRename(fmt)
    >>> date = time.strftime('%d%b%y')
    >>> for i, filename in enumerate(photofiles):
    ...     base, ext = os.path.splitext(filename)
    ...     newname = t.substitute(d=date+'_', n=i, f=ext)
    ...     print('{0} --> {1}'.format(filename, newname))

    img_1074.jpg --> Ashley_0.jpg
    img_1076.jpg --> Ashley_1.jpg
    img_1077.jpg --> Ashley_2.jpg

Yasir.

Thank you for the suggestion, but the point of having the input() is that the end user can select their own rename style with arbitrary text and either including or excluding possible data substitutions of their own choice.

The photo processing software I was using at the time I wrote the example works just like this.