I'd like to use a bash script or command to find files that have very similar names but differ only in a part inside the brackets. e.g.
Filename (year1)
Filename (year2)
should match.
Or more specifically,
Filename (2000)
Filename (2001)
should match.
The following script works by setting the list of positional parameters to the list of names matching the pattern *' ('*')', i.e., all files with names that contain a space followed by parenthesis at the end, in the current directory.
The script uses a double loop to compare each name against all others. To avoid comparing some name A against some other name B and then B against A, we shift off the first element of the list at the start of the outer iteration. This also avoids testing a name A against itself.
Inside the inner loop, we remove the parenthesis at the end of the names and compare the two resulting strings. If the strings are the same, we print the names.
#!/bin/sh
set -- *' ('*')'
for name do
shift
for dup do
if [ "${name%% (*)}" = "${dup%% (*)}" ]; then
printf '"%s" <-> "%s"\n' "$name" "$dup"
fi
done
done
gawk and python would need to take special care with names containing newlines, which my code deals with.
something1 (year1) and something1 (year2) and between something2 (year3) and something2 (year4), if I recall correctly. So something1 is duplicated and something2 is duplicated, but I never thought they would be duplicates of each other, and that's not what the question says or have ever said.
set -- *' ('*')' to set -- *' ('*').ext' and then also change ${name%% (*)} to ${name%% (*).ext}, and similarly for dup in that test.
Though late, I thought I'd contribute a small Bash script that processes filenames with Gawk. It flags a variety of dupes among files in any given directory. The processing remains O(n^2), although file pairs are checked only once.
Run the script in the directory of interest, for instance in a directory that contains:
$ \ls -A -1
2323- (1236).suffix
23232(1234).suffix
23232 (1236).hsj
23232 (1236).suffix
hello(2001.10.29)fgh.ssh
hello(2002.10.29)fgh.ssh
23232(1236).suffix
23232(12 6).suffix
23232 (1286).suffix
23232 (1446).suffix
23232(3236).suffix
dwlkl(1234).sds
Now the script:
$ cat near_match.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
gawk '
{i++; a[i] = $0; next} # put files to check in array 'a'
END {
nfiles = i; # number of files to check
for (i = 1; i <= nfiles-1; i++) {
lblkarr1 = split(a[i], blkarr1, "[()]");
lparr1 = split(blkarr1[2], parr1, "");
for (j = i+1; j <= nfiles; j++) {
lblkarr2 = split(a[j], blkarr2, "[()]");
lparr2 = split(blkarr2[2], parr2, "");
mismatch = 0;
if ("x"blkarr1[1]"x" == "x"blkarr2[1]"x" && "x"blkarr1[3]"x" == "x"blkarr2[3]"x" && lparr1 == lparr2) {
for (k=1; k<=length(blkarr1[2]); k++) { if (parr1[k] != parr2[k]) mismatch++ };
if (mismatch == 1) printf "dupes: %s <--> %s\n", a[i], a[j];
}
}
}
}' <<< $(\ls -A -1 -- *"("*")"*)
exit 0
Make the script executable and run with no arguments.
$ near_match.sh
dupes: 23232(1234).suffix <--> 23232(1236).suffix
dupes: 23232 (1236).suffix <--> 23232 (1286).suffix
dupes: hello(2001.10.29)fgh.ssh <--> hello(2002.10.29)fgh.ssh
dupes: 23232(1236).suffix <--> 23232(12 6).suffix
dupes: 23232(1236).suffix <--> 23232(3236).suffix
HTH
