Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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This isn't programming, but programmer types are likely to be the best people to have a conversation about file-naming conventions, which I'm interested in exploring briefly if anyone has time. I'm trying to decide the best way to manage multiple versions of files using date schemes that include the year, the month as a number plus an abbreviation of the month as a name (since most of us 'see' words faster), etc, etc.
As an example: project_profiles(08aug2006).indd What is being taught these days? Is there some standard of which I've been heretofore* unaware? * triple point score |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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I think most would suggest using an automatic version control system like CVS or SVN.
Naming by hand, though, I personally would go with filename_YYYYMMDD or filename_YYYY-MM-DD, ie filename_2006-08-30. That way the files will be properly listed in date order when sorted by name. I much prefer using month numbers instead of textual abbreviations for the aforementioned sorting purposes. I can 'see' them just fine. The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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I'm not sure I see the need to have a date in the file name when dates are already stored anyway — creation date, last modification date, last access date. So, all you really need in the file name is a revision ID.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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Depends on how you access the files, how you want to format that rev number.
In the Finder, it intelligently identifies that File9.txt is 'less than' File100.txt, and sorts it appropriately. Terminal doesn't. You get them all out of 'order', and you need to prepend zeroes to pad the space. But then you get into "well, how *many* zeroes?" Do you want a max of 10 revisions? 100? 1000? YMDhms always sorts correctly, which is why a lot of people use it. It also lets you insert a copy along the way if you get an intermediate version later, or you missed one along the conversion. |
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Unless, of course, you use multiple files a day, in which case the question becomes "but how many files a day max?".
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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In which case you end up with an even more ugly file name
'ls -1tr'? |
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BANNED
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If your files are for the web, you should use hyphens instead of an underscore. Serach for huge_online_casino and then huge-online-casino to see the difference first-hand.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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Okay, so that fixes ls, but what about other tools? How about ImageMagick's ability to take a list of images and combine them into one? Now you're out of order, unless you pipe it through ls first. Okay, but now what about scripts? Are you going to edit all of those?
It's much easier just to use a std format of either padded counters, or YMDhms. Either one works, it becomes an issue of which one you prefer. I prefer the latter, hands down, due to the flexibility. |
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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I usually end up making multiple versions of Illustrator & Photoshop files (made in the same work period) but those files are generally assigned to project directories which are already organized using date-specific titling.
for example: applenova_orgchart_002.ai When I work on documents that are updated irregularly is when I want to drop back into a date-specific titling mode. The CVS and SVN sound familiar, is that the way that my web traffic files are organized in SQL? |
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