aka/README.rst

Aka - Rename files in complicated ways easily
=============================================
Abstract
--------

This package provides a command line utility called ``aka`` for swiftly renaming (or copying) files using Python code.
This makes it easy to rename files even when the changes you are making are quite complicated. It always
renames files in two passes to avoid collisions; it tries to detect miscellaneous errors in advance; and
if errors occur underways it will put you in an emergency mode to resolve the problem or roll back changes.
It also provides the functions ``aka.rename`` and ``aka.copy``, which is the underlying interface.

The problem being solved
------------------------

Lets say you have a directory with the files ``File0``, ``File1``, and ``File2``. Then some people comes along and complains
(rightly or wrongly) that the numbering starts at zero. So you decide to write a program to rename all those files, but a
problem arises. You cannot do it in any order you like, you have to start with ``File2 -> File3`` in order to avoid conflicts.
It'd be nice to just write a function that knows how to change the names of individual files and let another program sort out the rest.
This is what ``aka.rename`` is about:

.. code-block:: pycon

   >>> import aka
   >>> from contex import rules
   >>> def machine(fn):
           return rules(r'File(\d+)', {1: lambda digit: int(digit) + 1}).apply(fn)
   >>> machine('File42')
   'File43'
   >>> aka.rename(machine)
   Actions to be taken (simplified; doesn't show the temporary stage):
     /home/uglemat/Documents/File0           -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File1
     /home/uglemat/Documents/File1           -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File2
     /home/uglemat/Documents/File2           -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File3
   Target directories:
     /home/uglemat/Documents
   
   The files will be renamed as shown above (in two passes though, in order to avoid
   collisions). This program searched for name conflicts in all target directories
   and did not find any. If errors do pop up, you'll be taken to an emergency mode
   where you can roll back changes. Continue? [N/y]: y
   Renaming /home/uglemat/Documents/File0 -> /tmp/aka_maok91r8/File0
   Renaming /home/uglemat/Documents/File1 -> /tmp/aka_maok91r8/File1
   Renaming /home/uglemat/Documents/File2 -> /tmp/aka_maok91r8/File2
   Renaming /tmp/aka_maok91r8/File0 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File1
   Renaming /tmp/aka_maok91r8/File1 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File2
   Renaming /tmp/aka_maok91r8/File2 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File3
   True

I used `contex.rules <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/contex/>`_ to manipulate the string, but you can do whatever you like inside ``machine``, you
just need to return the new name of the file.

By default it renames files in the current working directory, but that can be changed with the ``location`` argument to ``aka.rename``. ``aka.copy``
is basically the same, it just copies files instead. Read the docstrings of those functions to learn the details.

Command line utility
--------------------

That's all fine and dandy, but when you just have some files and you need to rename them, you want to do it with a command line utility. This is the basics:

.. code-block:: bash
   
   $ aka --help
   Useful information ...
   $ aka -p 'fn+".jpg"'

That will add a ".jpg" suffix to all files in the working directory. But lets do what we did above with ``aka.rename``:

.. code-block:: bash
   
   $ aka -p 'rules(r"File(\d+)", {1: lambda digit: int(digit) + 1})'

The expression after ``-p`` doesn't need to be a new filename, it can also be a unary callable (like ``machine`` above) that returns the new filename.
That is why the example above works; ``contex.rules`` returns a callable. If you want to copy instead of rename, just add in the ``-c`` option:

.. code-block:: bash
   
   $ aka -c -p 'rules(r"File(\d+)", {1: lambda digit: int(digit) + 1})'
   
    -- COPYING FILES IN . --
   
   ERROR: /home/uglemat/Documents/File1 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File2 is a conflict!
   ERROR: /home/uglemat/Documents/File2 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File3 is a conflict!
   Aborting...

Err, yes, that won't work, of course. Good thing ``aka`` detects naming conflicts in advance!

More complicated renaming schemes
---------------------------------

That's great, but what if it's not a simple one-liner? Then you need to create a new file,
write some python code, launch the python interpreter, import the stuff you need... It's cumbersome, which is why ``aka`` can help with that:

.. code-block:: bash
   
   $ aka -e emacs

This will launch emacs and take you to a temporary file which looks kind of like this:

.. code-block:: python
   
   import re
   from os.path import join
   from contex import rules
   
   # Directories in which to perform changes:
   #   /home/uglemat/Documents
   
   def rename(fn, dirname):
       return fn


Your job is to complete ``rename``, and when you exit the editor it will do the job (after asking you if you want to continue).
   
Lets do something more advanced, say you have lots of files in ``~/Documents/files`` of the format ``File<num>`` and you want to split
them into the folders ``odd`` and ``even``, like this:

.. code-block:: bash
   
   ~/Documents/files $ for i in {0..20}; do touch "File$i"; done
   ~/Documents/files $ ls
   File0  File1  File10  File11  File12  File13  File14  File15  File16  File17  File18  File19  File2  File20  File3  File4  File5  File6  File7  File8  File9
   ~/Documents/files $ mkdir odd even
   
There is a slight problem in that you can't rename ``odd`` and ``even``, but they are in the same directory. You just
got to make sure that the rename function returns a falsy value for those filenames (btw, aka treats directories like files and
will rename them too). Lets go to the editor with ``aka -e 'emacs -nw'`` and write this:

.. code-block:: python

   import re
   from os.path import join
   from contex import rules

   # Directories in which to perform changes:
   #   /home/uglemat/Documents/files

   def rename(fn, dirname):
       match = re.search(r'\d+', fn)
       if match:
           digit = int(match.group(0))
           return join('even' if even(digit) else 'odd', fn)
   

   def even(d):
       return (d % 2) == 0

The directories ``odd`` and ``even`` doesn't match, so ``rename`` returns ``None`` for those names and thus they are ignored, and
the code above works as expected:

.. code-block:: shell-session
   
   ~/Documents/files $ aka -e 'emacs -nw'
   running $ emacs -nw +9:14 /tmp/aka_3uvuyn8c.py
   Aka: Proceed? [Y/n]: y
   
    -- RENAMING FILES IN . --
   
   Actions to be taken (simplified; doesn't show the temporary stage):
     /home/uglemat/Documents/files/File3           -> /home/uglemat/Documents/files/odd/File3
     /home/uglemat/Documents/files/File18          -> /home/uglemat/Documents/files/even/File18
     /home/uglemat/Documents/files/File13          -> /home/uglemat/Documents/files/odd/File13
     ...
   Target directories:
     /home/uglemat/Documents/files/odd
     /home/uglemat/Documents/files/even
   
   The files will be renamed as shown above (in two passes though, in order to avoid
   collisions). This program searched for name conflicts in all target directories
   and did not find any. If errors do pop up, you'll be taken to an emergency mode
   where you can roll back changes. Continue? [N/y]: y
   Renaming /home/uglemat/Documents/files/File3 -> /tmp/aka_st72r5jp/File3
   Renaming /home/uglemat/Documents/files/File18 -> /tmp/aka_st72r5jp/File18
   Renaming /home/uglemat/Documents/files/File13 -> /tmp/aka_st72r5jp/File13
   ...
   Renaming /tmp/aka_st72r5jp/File3 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/files/odd/File3
   Renaming /tmp/aka_st72r5jp/File18 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/files/even/File18
   Renaming /tmp/aka_st72r5jp/File13 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/files/odd/File13
   ~/Documents/files $ ls *
   even:
   File0  File10  File12  File14  File16  File18  File2  File20  File4  File6  File8
   
   odd:
   File1  File11  File13  File15  File17  File19  File3  File5  File7  File9


Rollbacks
---------

To test the rollback feature of ``aka``, lets first launch this command:

.. code-block:: shell-session

    $ aka -p 'rules(r"File(\d+)", {1: lambda digit: int(digit) + 1})'
    
     -- RENAMING FILES IN . --
    
    Actions to be taken (simplified; doesn't show the temporary stage):
      /home/uglemat/Documents/File3           -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File4
      /home/uglemat/Documents/File1           -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File2
      /home/uglemat/Documents/File2           -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File3
    Target directories:
      /home/uglemat/Documents
    
    The files will be renamed as shown above (in two passes though, in order to avoid
    collisions). This program searched for name conflicts in all target directories
    and did not find any. If errors do pop up, you'll be taken to an emergency mode
    where you can roll back changes. Continue? [N/y]:
    
Now it's waiting for confirmation from the user. So we have time to do some sabotage in another shell:
                
.. code-block:: bash
   
   $ touch File4
   $ ls
   File1  File2  File3  File4

In the first shell, lets enter ``y`` to see how it fails:
                
.. code-block:: shell-session
                
   Renaming /home/uglemat/Documents/File3 -> /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File3
   Renaming /home/uglemat/Documents/File1 -> /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File1
   Renaming /home/uglemat/Documents/File2 -> /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File2
   Renaming /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File3 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File4
   
   
   EMERGENCY MODE: File /home/uglemat/Documents/File4 already exists!
   ERROR: Error happened when trying to rename /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File3 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File4
   
   What should the program do?
   retry    : try again (presumably you've fixed something in the meantime)
   rollback : attempt to undo changes (except for the ones previously continue'd)
   showroll : show which actions will be taken if you choose `rollback`
   exit     : exit the program
   continue : ignore the error and move on
   > 

Oh my, looks like think didn't go as planned. You're now in the emergency prompt of ``aka``. You can easily fix the problem
by deleting ``File4`` and entering ``retry``, but that's boring. Let's first see what happens when you select ``continue``:
                
.. code-block:: shell-session
   
   > continue
   Renaming /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File1 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File2
   Renaming /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File2 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File3
   LOST FILES IN TEMP DIR: '/tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b'
   $ ls /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b
   File3

It's not very nice that it just left the file in the temp dir. ``continue`` is probably rarely a good option. Lets be more sophisticated
and choose ``rollback``:

.. code-block:: shell-session
   
   > showroll
   Rollback actions:
     /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File2              -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File2
     /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File1              -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File1
     /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File3              -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File3
   What should the program do?
   retry    : try again (presumably you've fixed something in the meantime)
   rollback : attempt to undo changes (except for the ones previously continue'd)
   showroll : show which actions will be taken if you choose `rollback`
   exit     : exit the program
   continue : ignore the error and move on
   > rollback
   Rollback renaming /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File2 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File2
   Rollback renaming /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File1 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File1
   Rollback renaming /tmp/aka_1ozr4w4b/File3 -> /home/uglemat/Documents/File3
   $ ls
   File1  File2  File3  File4


Rollback will "undo" all previous actions, in the reverse order that they were "done'd". If you use the ``--copy`` option then the undoing
consists of deleting files already copied. If any of the rollback actions fails, then ``aka`` will ignore it and try to undo as much as possible.

Installing
----------

``aka`` works only in Python 3. 

Install with ``$ pip3 install aka``. You might want to replace ``pip3`` with ``pip``, depending on how your system is configured.

Windows Compatability
---------------------

I developed this program on GNU/Linux, but it should be working on Windows as well. It understands that filenames are
case insensitive on Windows when checking for naming conflicts, yet the case sensitivity is preserved when the actual renames are done.

Developing
----------

Aka has some tests. Run ``$ nosetests`` or
``$ python3 setup.py test`` to run the tests. The code is hosted at https://notabug.org/Uglemat/aka

You can install in development mode with ``$ python3 setup.py develop``, then your changes to aka will take effect immediately. Launch the same command with the ``--uninstall`` option to (kind of) remove.

License
-------

The code is licensed under the GNU General Public License 3 or later.
This README file is public domain.