Hello all.

I would like to make a script (or two shell scripts) that will do the following.

I need the maximum file name and directory name to be 38 characters long.
As well, if shortening the file name ends up making all of the files in that directory have the same name, then I would like the script to recognize this problem and then append numbers to the end of the file name. For example, the files shown below would have the same name if shortened to 38 characters.:

becomes and becomes so they have the same name, hence I would like to add a suffix of two digit numbers, starting at 01. So the originals would become
As well, I need to replace any occurrence of " [<>=?:;"*+,|]" in both the directory and file name with an underscore "_".

So, the script would modify the following directory


to
[QUOTE]/home/music/The Best of the Rat Pack _ more/

AND it would change the following file names located in that directory

to [QUOTE]Sinatra_ Frank & Tony Bennet & Sammie01
Sinatra_ Frank & Tony Bennet & Sammie02[/QUOTE]

I would need this to work recursively on all of the directories below /home/music/.

I found this "ruby" script using google, but it does not help with appending numbers to file names that are the same once truncated. Perhaps someone knows how to modify it so it does what I want it do do. I hope this helps:

Code:

    #!/usr/bin/ruby

# usage xbox_prep.rb DIRECTORY_NAME

DirName = ARGV[0]
file_name = ""          # name of the file to be checked
old_full_path = ""      # name and path of the file to be checked
new_full_path = ""      # new name and path of the file (modified if necessary)
basename = ""           # basename of the file
extension = ""          # extension of the file to be checked


if DirName == nil
        puts "usage:"
        puts ""
        puts "xbox_prep.rb DIRECTORY_NAME"
        puts ""
else

Dir.foreach(DirName){
        |file_name|
        if file_name != "." and file_name !=".."
         old_full_path = DirName + "/" + file_name
         basename = File.basename(old_full_path, ".*")
         extension = File.extname(old_full_path)


         # Modify the basename if neccessary
         basename.slice!(38,128)                        # shorten basename to 38 chars
         basename.gsub!(/[<>=?:;"*+,|]/,'_')            # Remove invalid characters

         # rename the file
         new_full_path = DirName + "/" + basename + extension
         File.rename(old_full_path, new_full_path)
         puts basename + extension

        end
}

end

Many thanks in advance for the help with this.