sift - a file sifter

sift is a utility that allows you to automatically sift source folders for items (files or folders) and selectively move or hard link these items to subfolders in a destination folder.

sift [OPTIONS] source/ destination/

Both source and destination must exist and be in the same filesystem.

Options:
 -m --move    : Move items. (Files and/or folders.)
 -l --link    : Make folders in destination, hardlink files from source.
 -t --test    : Test and report any items failing to matching anything.
 -d --deep    : Sift deeper using source folder sub-subfolders.
 -h --help    : Display more help.
 -q --quiet   : Donẗ show warnings about files already existing.
 -v --verbose : Output info about moved/linked items.

sift comes in just one single cpp-file, sift.cpp, so it's easy to compile.

First make sure that build_essential and bost are installed:

sudo apt install build_essential libboost-all-dev

or (to avoid installing all of boost.)

sudo apt install build_essential libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-system-dev

Then compile sift with this command:

g++ sift.cpp -o sift -lboost-system -lboost-filesystem -O2

Then just place the newly compiled executable file "sift" somewhere in your path.

sift can be used with two different types of source folders. Flat without any extra subfolder structure or with a single level extra subfolder structure.

It is assumed that each file or folder at the level directly below the source folder is a separate item that you wish to sift through. A typical example might be a download folder.

If you run sift with the --deep option it is assumed that the source folder contains a set of subfolders, each directly containing a bunch of files or folders that you wish to sift throug. An examples might be a folder with a set of several download folders. The destination folder for sift is this type of folder. That means that you can sift in several steps and use a previous destination folder as the new source folder.

In the destination folder you need to create subfolders that work as the holes in a sieve. Each item is tested against each "hole" in the destination folder subfolders. Destination folder subfolders are given names containing groups of words. If one word-group match, then the item from the source folder is moved or hard linked to that destination subfolder.

Destination subfolders are named using one or more word-group. Word-groups in the destination subfolder name are separated using ',', ')' or '('. Words in the word-group are separated with spaces. Example:

/path to destination/Science Fiction (space-opera, sci-fi)

Normaly its is enough that all words in a word-group match, in any order. But that can give too many false matches. To avoid that is it possible to also specify words in a word-group that must NOT match by prefixing the words with a '!' (exclamation point). It is also possible to specify that two words must match and be in order and in addition also near each other. At the most 1 character between them. You do this by having a '' (underscore) between those two words. (TODO: '' not implemented yet.) Example:

/path to destination/Science_Fiction !fantasy !steam-punk (space_opera, sci_fi)

You may decide if matching source items are to be moved or hard linked using the options --move or --link.

If a source item is moved it is moved only to the first match. Matches are made in approximate difficulty order so that the most difficult matches are tried first.

If a source item is hard linked, and it is a folder structure, then identical subfolders are created, recursively, in the matching destination subfolder and hard links to any files are also created in these subfolders.

Instead of using --move or --link you can use --test. Then sift will report all source items that doesn't match any destination subfolder. This is useful to find source items that otherwise would not be sifted successfully.