Tag Archives: ruby

Ruby File Renaming Utility

I wrote a little renaming utility to help me with the all too common task of file re-naming that seems to keep coming up. The class itself is pretty general; the idea is to extend it and override the “valid_file” and “format” methods for whatever specific task I’m doing.

The “valid_file” method is intended to recognize which files need to be renamed in the case you’ve got files you don’t want to touch in the directory. By default the function just ignores the “.” and “..” in the directory listing.

The “format” method is used to to specify the actual rules and routine to use when renaming your file. By default it replaces spaces and dashes with underscores.

Finally, this isn’t “finished” software. No error checking, no notes. It works for me and maybe it’ll work for you too.

Here’s an example class I wrote using the renaming utility. It’ll prepend the string “prepend_” onto all png files in the specified directory. Note that there’s a “safe_mode” variable passed in the constructor. Setting the “safe_mode” to true will prevent the files from being renamed while you’re working on it.

require 'renamer'

safe_mode = false

class Example < Renamer

  def format file
    file = custom_format(super(file))
    puts file 
    return file
  end

  def valid_file file
    valid = super(file)
    valid = valid && file.include?('.png')
    return valid
  end

  def custom_format file
    return "prepend_#{file}"
  end
end

if __FILE__ == $0  
  path = ARGV[0]
  r = Example.new(path,safe_mode)
  r.rename_files
end

Download the code: Ruby File Renaming Utility

Ruby Clipboard Utility

I have a few ruby scripts that I use to make life a little easier at work. Some of said scripts utilize the clipboard. My work machine is windows and my laptop runs Ubuntu. I’m able to use the same scripts on both computers but I have a few qualms with how I’m doing it.

Right now I’ve got classes for gnome and windows, a clipboard wrapper class to be used by my scripts and a basic (and poorly named) OS class I use to determine which class desktop class to use.

First off, the method I’m using to determine OS is…terrible. Currently I’m doing a string comparison in my OS class, but it doesn’t actually tell me which desktop application I’m actually running, so at the moment it’s just a dirty hack but I’m not sure of the preferred way to do it..

def is_linux
  return RUBY_PLATFORM == 'i486-linux'
end

Second, I’m uncomfortable with how I’m importing my desktop specific code in the main clipboard class. Is there a ruby-er way of doing this, or maybe just a smarter way anyone knows of?

class Clipboard
  def initialize
    os = OS.new
    if(os.is_linux)
      require 'clipboard/clipboard_gtk'
      clipboard = GTKClipboard.new
    else
      require 'clipboard/clipboard_win32'
      clipboard = WinClipboard.new
    end
    #other stuff
end

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Download the code: Clipboard Utility

PS: I realize there’s quite a bit of other stuff I need to do to really get this usable, but you have to start somewhere!