Re: file metadata

[James Thomas <jimjoe@gmx.net>]

James Thomas wrote:

> Christopher Howard wrote:
>
>> Hi, I have a bunch of files in various project that have
>> non-descriptive names, but I don't want to change the file names, nor
>> the file contents. It would be nice if there was some way I could
>> display my own description of the file next to the the file listing,
>> say in dired. Do we have any kind of extension, ideally with dired
>> integration, that provides some of kind of file metadata system, or
>> interacts with a third party metadata system?
>
> I had a system where I used:
>
> (let ((backup-directory-alist '(("." . "~/denote"))))
>   (make-backup-file-name-1 (expand-file-name
>   (file-name-with-extension filename "org"))))
>
> ...to automatically check for a corresponding denote file with metadata.

Wth, I decided to write it again. Sharing if useful for Denote users:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
;; Metadata for files

(defun denote-metadata (file)
  (interactive
   (list (read-file-name "Metadata for file: ")))
  (find-file
   (let* ((backup-directory-alist `(("." . ,(denote-directory))))
	  (name (make-backup-file-name-1
		 (expand-file-name file))))
     (expand-file-name
      (concat
       (denote-get-identifier) "--"
       (file-name-nondirectory name) ".org")
      (file-name-directory name))))))

(defun my/dired-mark-files-with-metadata nil
  (interactive)
  (save-excursion
    (let* ((backup-directory-alist '(("." . "/")))
	   (d (file-relative-name
	       (make-backup-file-name-1
		(expand-file-name default-directory))
	       "/"))
	   temp
	   (hits 0))
      (mapcar
       (lambda (f)
	 (goto-char (point-min))
	 (when
	     (search-forward-regexp
	      (format
	       "\\s %s[*@]?$"
	       (file-name-sans-extension
		(string-remove-prefix
		 d
		 (string-trim-left
		  f (concat denote-id-regexp "--")))))
	      nil t)
	   (setq hits (1+ hits))
	   (dired-mark 1)))
       (directory-files
	(denote-directory) nil
	(concat "\\`" denote-id-regexp "--" d)))
      (message "%d files with metadata marked" hits))))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

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