Introduction

cpShuffleSature randomly copies files from one directory to another. It is designed for copying music, pictures, or films onto any hardware device (player) which serves as a filesystem (such as I-Bead, iPod, Archos...).

It will not delete nor modify existing files and is developed with portability in mind.

It runs on every system where a recent (5.8 is OK) version of Perl is installed. To use it with MS-Windows you need Perl (explore ActiveState).

cpShuffleSature can:

select really randomly but not let any file be copied more often than the others
select files accross subdirectories and upon a regular expression applied to the filename (w/o path)
replicate under the target directory along with the directory tree
filter out parts of the original directory names
leave a given amount of available space on the target filesystem
copy entire directory contents or sparse files
limit the total size of files copied, and/or copied into the same target directory. and/or enforce a limit expressed as freespace on the target
(under Unix) mount the player before copying then unmount it
understand and print numeric data (file sizes...) expressed with units ("20.5M 1K")
run in 'verbose' or 'dummy' mode to let you know what it will do or does

Licence: public domain
Author: Nat Makarevitch

Tested under Linux, please send your requests, bug reports or patches.

Examples and cookbook

Please read this to obtain a better grasp of the function and usage of this software: cpShuffleSature_demo.txt

Download

cpShuffleSature (the script), last stable version (PGP-GPG signature)
cpShuffleSature (the script), last unstable version (PGP-GPG signature)
freshmeat, useful for subscribing to new releases

Todo

--destroy option, which deletes target files existing in the source dir (same size + compares the first, midd and last clusters contents (test adequation against std multimedia files?))

use it as a player, à la randomplay
with a memory of songs played preserved across sessions, so you don't "lose your place" if you have to shut down. "mp3"s to "mpg123" "ogg"s to "ogg123" "mid"s to "timidity" "wav"s to "play" idea: test program existence

re-encode on the fly, while copying. for example OGG to MP3 or lower sampling speed

-vv must produce various stats

afin de ne copier que/pas les fichiers arborant un commentaire donné utiliser (sans qu'ils soient nécessaires) : MP3::Info libimage-info-perl libvorbis-perl ajouter option regexps pondérées des filenames et/ou tags (MP3 ...) augmentant ou diminuant la proba de sélection

multilingue (Locale::gettext), mais sans dépendre de ce module my $module_B_is_available; essayer avec libmodule-info-perl BEGIN { $module_B_is_available = eval { require B; B->import; 1 } or do_fixup_code_if_B_not_available(); };

GUI 'Perl Tk' (?) projette la sélection, offre moyen de sélectionner/déselect, enrichir les regexp de filtrage ...

Changelog

20040704
- various minor enhancements, new stable version
20040609
- new scoring scheme, test and let me know
20040608
- contribution by Jim Crumley (csbsju.edu): opt_nosubdir support
- last unstable version published
20040229 (this is an unstable version, only avail thru CVS (v1.17))
- Work in progress (scoring ...)
20040101 (this is a beta version, only avail thru CVS (v1.16))
- More adequate scoring: any new or changed file is now inserted in history as if we already copied it numerous (90% of the average) times. memoization (faster).
- The '--prefername a_regexp' option overscores files which names are selected by the regexp
20031206
- The '-n' option now works
- The history file is updated even in case of break (control-C ...)
20031203
- The '-w' option now works and sorts (alpha) the directory contents
- One may choose the min age of any processed file (expressed with human units: week, day ...)
- The history-file content is protected in case of serialization failure
- Numerous enhancements of arguments processing and documentation.
20031127
- unit converter for time units
- better unit converter (less risk for ambiguity)
- lockindicator (target) debugged
- better help
20031124
- better scoring
- bug related to the infamous 'magic number' fixed
20031123
- BEWARE: --ignorehistory suboptions (=1: use and write, =2: use but don't write, ignore)
- --names modifies history (or use --ignorehistory)
20031121
- history
20031114
- stores informations about copied files accross runs
- honours locking of directories (.cpsslock)
20031103
- enhanced verbose mode
- fastest process
- pathnames normalization (implementation: code borrowed from Joey Hess)
- debug
20031031
- all numeric parameters are fetched and printed in human readable format (approach: Emmanuel Manganneau)
- better messages
- better dummy mode
- selection is now done with a list of directories names (-s) and a filtering regexp (-f) applied to the filename (without the path)

20031029
- all numeric parameters can use units
- ad hoc memoization of the function establishing the avail space on target

Similar codes

Installation

Linux

You need Perl 5.8, Carp::Assert and Filesys::DiskFree

Debian

invoke 'apt-get install libcarp-assert-perl libfilesys-diskfree-perl'

Other distributions

Please let me know!

FAQ

Name

Stupid name choosen because it is somewhat clear for French and English speakers.

Arguments under Unix shells

Under Unix do NOT forget to quote the arguments otherwise interpreted by the shell.

Mounting

Unix users: mount the filesystem exported by your USB device in 'sync' mode to somewhat reduce the probability of loss after any plug-out done before umounting. Under Linux the corresponding /etc/fstab entry may be:

/dev/sda1  /mnt/usb  vfat  defaults,user,noatime,noauto,sync  0 0