morph

Morph is a batch file renaming library and application written in Python. It is an attempt to define flexible renaming rules that can be applied to any given list of files.

Features

Renaming patterns include literals and incrementing counters
Patterns can be chained together
File list can be modified between pattern applications
A cli interface demonstration

Concepts

A pattern is a renaming rule. Given a filename, it will produce a new filename according to the rule. A pattern may depend on additional metadata such as the index of the file within a file list.

A pattern chain is a sequence of patterns. Each pattern is applied in sequence to a filename to produce a final filename. A pattern chain can be applied to a list of filenames.

There is the additional FilePatternChain which represents file list manipulations such as reordering, adding, and deleting of files.

A renaming operation requires two inputs: a file list and a list of pattern chains. Conceptually, the pattern chains are applied in sequence to the file list. The actual file renaming operation however just tracks filename changes (including add/move/deletes) and performs a single file rename from the original filename to the final filename.

Usage

morph-cli is a REPL python script.

Consider the following dir:

$ ls -1
file (1).txt
file (2).txt
file (3).txt
file.txt

The user runs in the dir:

$ PYTHONPATH=/path/to/morph/dir /path/to/morph/bin/morph-cli *

morph-cli takes in a list of files as arguments as the initial list of files.

Morph> files
0: file (1).txt
1: file (2).txt
2: file (3).txt
3: file.txt

files will list the current file list. The file list can then be manipulated:

Morph> file -m 0 3
Move file.txt from position 3 to 0? (y/N) y
0: file.txt
1: file (1).txt
2: file (2).txt
3: file (3).txt

chains creates and manages pattern chains

Morph> chain -n replace statement.2013. ## .txt
Chain 0:
    Literal (replace, statement.2013.)
    NumericCounter (append, 1, 1, 2)
    Literal (append, .txt)

This command created a new replace type chain with 3 patterns in a sequence. A replace chain will disregard the original file name when applying the patterns. This is done by making the first pattern a replace pattern and the rest of the patterns append patterns. A literal pattern consists of a single literal string. A numeric counter is a padded number that starts from a number and increases for each subsequence file in the file list.

preview allows you to see the result of applying the chain.

Morph> preview 0
Preview chain 0:
    Literal (replace, statement.2013.)
    NumericCounter (append, 1, 1, 2)
    Literal (append, .txt)

Files:
0: statement.2013.01.txt
1: statement.2013.02.txt
2: statement.2013.03.txt
3: statement.2013.04.txt

apply applies the specified pattern to the current file list. You will see the file list change.

Morph> apply 0
Apply chain 0:
    Literal (replace, statement.2013.)
    NumericCounter (append, 1, 1, 2)
    Literal (append, .txt)

file.txt    =>  statement.2013.01.txt
file (1).txt    => statement.2013.02.txt
file (2).txt    =>  statement.2013.03.txt
file (3).txt    =>  statement.2013.04.txt
Morph> files
0: statement.2013.01.txt
1: statement.2013.02.txt
2: statement.2013.03.txt
3: statement.2013.04.txt

When you are satisfied with the final preview, commit the changes to disk.

Morph> commit
Morph>
$ ls -1
original
statement.2013.01.txt
statement.2013.02.txt
statement.2013.03.txt
statement.2013.04.txt
$ ls -1 original/
file (1).txt
file (2).txt
file (3).txt
file.txt

The original files are automatically backed up.

Limitations

Only replace pattern chains can be created
Only Literal and NumericCounter default patterns can be created using `chain

Background

This project is inspired by the 1-4a Rename utility, a Windows freeware application.

The separation of pattern chains and file lists follows the concept of the separation of code and data.