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dupfinder

duplicate finder for files.

This python script will search through a specified directory for all the files and copy one instance of them into another directory. It leaves the original files and directories untouched.

A new directory called Copied is created at working directory where these files are copied into.

running dupfinder.py

Usage: dupfinder.py [options]

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -x FILE_EXTENSION, --ext=FILE_EXTENSION
                        the extension used for file filter
  -p PATH, --path=PATH  file path to use
  -d DESTINATION, --dst=DESTINATION
                        where the unique files are to be copied into
  -l MAX_NUMBER_OF_FILES, --limits=MAX_NUMBER_OF_FILES
                        set a limit on the number of files to process

The problem it is trying to solve.

My wife and I take a lot of photos with our phones. When I transfer them onto our computer, there is no way of knowing whether I have already transferred the files to the computer or not. So to be safe, I copied all the files from the phone to the computer, and clean up the files on the computer.

The reason for doing this

There are quite a few duplicate finders available, but as an exercise for me to learn python, I have undertaken this project.

The algorithm

For the specified path, the python script will search for a file that matches the specified file extension. When it finds it, it will generate a md5 digest for that file. With the generated md5 digest, it searches through its already logged file if there is already a file with the same md5 digest. If it has, it will increase the count for that md5 digest. For that digest, it will also logged the full path. When all the files have been filtered, it will interate over each in the list and copied it to the destination folder.