finding renamed files

[Phil Davis]

Hi David -

If the last modified date of all non-name-changed files is the same (as I 
suspect they would be if they came from a digital camera), you could use 'the 
detailed files' to identify all files in the directory with dates different than 
that 'standard' mod date. Those would be the changed ones. Of course from that 
you won't know what was changed about them, only that they were changed.

HTH -
Phil Davis


David Glasgow wrote:
> I am looking for a quick and dirty method for walking a directory and 
> finding files that have been renamed by the user.  I don't need to find 
> them all, just as many as possible.  The folders are likely to 
> originally contain matching stems and progressive numbers pjf017.jpg, 
> pjf018 .jpg, pfj019 .jpg etc. etc, with the user renamed files standing 
> out completely arbitrarily by not following the pattern .
> 
> At the moment I do this using the eyeball test, which is remarkably 
> quick and efficient but very very very boring because there are often 
> thousands of files to scan.  One approach I thought of is to 
> progressively filter the folders' contents by nibbling a character off 
> the end of the first filename.  If it is completely unique (and possibly 
> therefore renamed), nothing will happen.  However if  9 other files 
> disappear, it was a name representative of progressive pattern.  Nibble 
> another character, and so on until it is gone, and any filenames left 
> over didn't fit the dominant pattern in the folder.  Yes?  No? .  Any 
> other suggestions?
> 
> Best Wishes,
> 
> David Glasgow
> Carlton Glasgow Partnership
> 
> http://www.i-psych.co.uk