AutoChecklist

A script I wrote because I don't want to sign up to MyAnimeList, so I wrote my own ripoff of the most prominent feature: keeping a list of your anime.

This tool lets you keep checklists (in a very specific format; covered later), and will update items on the checklists by bringing them in from the filesystem when you run this script.

Usage

The general usage of this program follows this pattern:

auto-checklist filename.txt

Nothing more to it.

There are some command-line options described in auto-checklist --help, but those are not necessary for normal operation of this program and exist as shortcuts for operations you could do yourself with a text editor.

File format

The file is divided up into sections.

`From:`

Everything under the From: section must be a glob beginning with - (a hyphen then a space). The glob will match directory names, and those directories will then be automatically added as sections if they don't exist. This allows you to manage new directories in a nice-ish way.

This gets placed at the beginning of the file when this script processes it. All From: sections will be merged into one section.

`Ignore:`

Everything under the Ignore: section is structured similarly to everything under the From: section, except that instead of globs, every filename is exactly specified.

These specify full paths (actually, directory path + forward slash + filename), which will not be included when scanning directories.

This section gets placed at the end of the file once the script processes it. As with From: sections, these will all be merged into one.

Directory sections

These can be automatically generated from directories matched by a glob in a From: section, or you can add them manually. They will never be deleted.

The section heading takes one of two forms:

= /path/to/dir:
name = /path/to/dir:

The name can be arbitrary, but take care not to use the equals sign in the interests of not confusing the parser. Spaces around the equals sign before the path are mandatory.

Entries in this section are different from entries in a From: or Ignore: section. They take this form:

[x] Filename

Where x is any sequence of characters other than ] or the newline character (but is usually just one character), and where Filename is an exact filename usually corresponding to a directory entry found under this section's path.

The x (in whatever form it may be) is referred to as the check-mark, and the entire line is an item. Collectively, these items under a section form a checklist.

Items are never removed from checklists unless the check-mark is I or S (case-insensitive).

Checklists are never re-ordered, and new checklists appear below existing checklists (and above the Ignore: section). Checklist items are also never re-ordered, unless a special check-mark is used which mandates this. New checklist items appear below existing items.

Check-marks

There are three kinds of special check-mark (case insensitive):

I: Ignore the filename in future runs, and delete from this checklist as soon as possible. Mnemonic: "Ignore".
S: Ignore the filename in future runs, delete from this checklist as soon as possible, and create an entirely new checklist from this filename. Only really makes sense for directories. Mnemonic: "Split", "Search", or "Subdirectory".
M: The file no longer exists. This does not have any special meaning to the program itself, but empty checkmarks will be overwritten with this if the file has gone away. Mnemonic: "Missing".

It is not guaranteed that these will be the only special kinds of check-marks. Since this script is mostly personal to me, I don't feel obliged to make any special guarantees. As my gift to you, check-marks beginning with # (the hash character) will never be considered special in any way.

Check-marks which are not special will not have any special treatment applied. They will be preserved exactly between runs of this tool.

Example file

Here is an unrealistic, fantastical example of a file to be processed by this software:

From:
- ~/docs
- ~/videos/anime/*

PDFs and stuff = /home/me/docs:
[S] books
[ ] hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf
[X] lf_pub_who_writes_linux_2013.pdf
[ ] redditfoodpdf.pdf
[i] university research project

= /home/me/videos/anime/misc:
[# TAKE THESE SUGGESTIONS #] lainchan__w_eeb_recommended_media.txt

= /home/me/videos/anime/action:
[X] Overlord
[X] Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

= /home/me/videos/anime/qt:
[ ] Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka
[X] Kiniro Mosaic

= /home/me/videos/anime/comedy:
[ ] Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita
[X] Nichijou

Ignore:
- /home/me/docs/books/reading-list.txt

It is unrealistic in that it is far more organised and clean than I could ever reasonably expect, and if you only plan to watch 6 anime series then you really need to step up your game.

In this example, the books directory (under /home/me/docs) is about to be removed from the "PDFs and stuff" checklist and re-created as a checklist in its own right. The university research project directory is about to disappear and be thrown into the Ignore: list. Everything else is going to stay as-is, unless more files have been created inside directories managed by checklists already, or more directories have been created matching the glob ~/videos/anime/*.

Dependencies

perl 5.16
The enum module (get it from CPAN)
- This dependency could be easily patched out. It does something trivial.

Limitations

To avoid the need for complex escaping and such, pathnames will be entirely ignored if they:

Contain newlines
Have trailing whitespace
Have leading whitespace

I hope you sympathise.

ScoreUnder / AutoChecklist