airallergy / zotutil

A Python Module of Zotero Utilities

ZotUtil

This is a repository of utilities to assist the use of Zotero and its plugins via pyzotero.

Utilities

• Unlinked Files Clean

  • Motivation

    This is to resolve situations when attachment files are left behind whilst their formerly linked entries have been deleted from the Zotero library. This happens when the Linked Files is used, most likely together with ZotFile.

  • Functions

    clean unlinked files
    ├── relocate unlinked files
    ├── remove unlinked files
    └── restore unlinked files

• Tags Case Unification (To Do)

  • Motivation

    This is to resolve situations when literally same tags co-exist in different cases (e.g. climate change, Climate change & Climate Change), due to diverse bibliography import sources and the case sensitivity in Zotero. Some regard this as a feature though, see discussion here.

zotutil's Issues

Empty directories removal not complete when nested

If the directory structure is like

folder a
├── folder b1
│   └── file c1
├── folder b2
│   └── folder c1
│       └── folder d1
└── file b1

only folder d1 will be removed currently, while folder b2 & folder c1 should also be removed.

Empty directories removal verbose

#4 nested empty directories can be removed, but one path could be checked over once, which could raise error due to non existence after the first removal.

Add the option to relocate unlinked files to the same directory each time

Add the option to define a suffix to the relocation directory name, if None, unlinked files will be relocated to the same directory every time, otherwise, a directory with some suffix, such as the timestamp currently.

The logic would be:

1. check if the specified directory exists, create if not;
2. check if the map file exists, read if does;
3. do the relocation.

Besides, might need to deal with files with the same name, need to check how pathlib does about it.

A bit restructure required to deal with the unlinked files

1. Relying on the nuance between remove and delete can cause confusion.
2. There should be a separated function to put unlinked files together, and a function to combine it and the permanent deletion, like the current remove_unlinked_files.

Occasion of duplicates when relocation

Mentioned in #2. This would happen only when no distinguished relocation folder suffix is used.

pathlib will silently replace the duplicate if one, a bit strategy should be applied to address this.

One solution would be:

1. check if the renamed path exists;
2. if exists, check if they have the same pre-relocation path;
   3a. if yes, delete the to-be-relocated unlinked file, and leave no entry in the relocation map;
   3b. if not, add a suffix to the filename, and do the relocation.