goldfinch 0.4

About

goldfinch is simple package which removes invalid filename characters from a filename. Pass in a string or unicode (with or without invalid characters) and get valid filename returned (as unicode).

In general, goldfinch will remove invalid filename characters like <>:”/|?* and characters above the 0-255 character set. The default is is to attempt to convert to ascii characters using _unicodedata_.

Install

pip install goldfinch or easy_install -U goldfinch

Why use goldfinch

The only real usecase for this package is when one creates filenames on the fly and there is no way of knowing what exactly will be passed as the filename. I find it particularly useful when I scrape websites.

So, instead of this happening:

>>> fileName = 'this is a filename with some invalid characters in it <>:"/\|?*'
>>> file = open(fileName,"w")
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'this is a filename with some invalid characters in it <>:"/\\|?*'

Do this:

>>> from goldfinch import validFileName as vfn
>>> fileName = 'this is a filename with some invalid characters in it <>:"/\|?*'
>>> file = open(vfn(fileName),"w")

Examples

There are three (space, initCap, and ascii) options available when normalizing a filename.

The default is ‘space=”underscore”, initCap=True, ascii=True’.

• For space the options are underscore, remove, and keep. The default is underscore which will replace a space with an underscore (_).

• initCap is a True & False option. True which is the default will convert the first character in a word to cap and leave all others lowercase.

• ascii is also a True & False option. Once again True is the default which will convert something like this ÅåÄäÖ to this AaAaO. False will leave characters as-is.

Use default setting:

>>> fileName = 'THIS IS a filename with ÅåÄäÖ some characters that will not work like these: <>:"/\|?*'
>>> vfn(fileName)
'This_Is_A_Filename_With_Aaaao_Some_Characters_That_Will_Not_Work_Like_These'

Default with unicode input:

>>> fileName = u'THIS IS a filename with ÅåÄäÖ some characters that will not work like these: <>:"/\|?*'
>>> vfn(fileName)
'This_Is_A_Filename_With_Aaaao_Some_Characters_That_Will_Not_Work_Like_These'

With initCap = False:

>>> vfn(fileName, initCap = False)
'THIS_IS_a_filename_with_AaAaO_some_characters_that_will_not_work_like_these_'

With space = ‘remove’:

>>> vfn(fileName, space = 'remove')
'ThisIsAFilenameWithAaaaoSomeCharactersThatWillNotWorkLikeThese'