lsseq 2.4.0

ls-like command for image frame sequences

About lsseq

lsseq is a unix/linux command-line utility that lists directory contents (akin to /bin/ls) while condensing image sequences (or cache sequences) to one entry each and listing the sequence in a helpful way. Filenames that are part of sequences are assumed to be of the form:

    <descriptiveName>.<frameNum>.<imgExtension>

where <imgExtension> is drawn from a default list of image extensions or an environment variable that can be set to override the default list. (see lsseq --help and in particular --imgExt). Note that lsseq can also handle the case that the dot-separator between the <descriptiveName> and the <frameNum> is an underscore (see lsseq --help for --looseNumSeparator, -l).

lsseq can print the image sequence in a variety of formats useful for nuke, houdini or rv and can also print a glob pattern for use in the shell. It also has it's own native output which is nice to read.

For example:

$ ls
aaa.097.tif  aaa.098.tif  aaa.100.tif  aaa.101.tif  aaa.102.tif  aaa.103.tif
$ lsseq
aaa.[097-103].tif m:[99]

What lsseq tells us here is that there is a sequence of tif files named aaa with frames 97 through 103 (three padded) and frame 99 is missing.

lsseq was written and designed in a way that hopefully makes it unnecessary for anyone to feel they have to write such a utility ever again.

To that end lsseq is designed to have the flavor of the unix/linux/osx ls command as much as possible. The idea is to make it easier on the user when switching back and forth between using lsseq and regular ls so that the look of the output as well as several command-line-arguments are the same (where possible and it makes sense).

Furthermore it was written to be as robust as possible. For example, it handles negative frames properly and has been extensively tested and used at several production studios. There is a regression test program included with the source here on github to help test any changes, additions, bug fixes etc.

Lastly some useful options have been added beyond what /bin/ls does that extend lsseq's capability.

For example:

1$ ls -F
aaa/  bbb/  ccc.0101.exr  nonImage.file

2$ ls *
ccc.0101.exr  nonImage.file

aaa:
aaa.097.tif  aaa.098.tif  aaa.100.tif  aaa.101.tif  aaa.102.tif  aaa.103.tif  nonImage_A.file

bbb:
bbx.0097.tif  bbx.0100.tif  bbx.0103.tif  bby.0199.tif  bby.0202.tif      nonImage_B2.file
bbx.0098.tif  bbx.0101.tif  bby.0197.tif  bby.0200.tif  bby.0203.tif
bbx.0099.tif  bbx.0102.tif  bby.0198.tif  bby.0201.tif  nonImage_B1.file

3$ lsseq *
nonImage.file
ccc.[0101].exr

aaa:
nonImage_A.file
aaa.[097-103].tif m:[99]

bbb:
nonImage_B1.file  nonImage_B2.file
bbx.[0097-0103].tif
bby.[0197-0203].tif

4$ lsseq --prependPathRel *
ccc.[0101].exr
aaa/aaa.[097-103].tif m:[99]
bbb/bbx.[0097-0103].tif
bbb/bby.[0197-0203].tif

5$ lsseq --prependPathAbs --skipMissing --format rv *
/user/jrowellfx/test/ccc.0101.exr
/user/jrowellfx/test/aaa/aaa.97-103@@@.tif
/user/jrowellfx/test/bbb/bbx.97-103#.tif
/user/jrowellfx/test/bbb/bby.197-203#.tif

The first thing to note above is how close lsseq is to mimicking /bin/ls in labelling directories and listing directory contents etc. (compare the output of command 2 to 3). One difference being that lsseq first lists all non-sequence images in a directory exactly as ls would list them (minus the sequences) then lists all the sequences in their condensed form.

Secondly note the two useful options in commands 4 and 5 above, --prependPathRel and --prependPathAbs which can be very useful when creating lists of sequences to pipe into other scripts.

It's recommended to review the capabilities of lsseq in how it can sort sequences, especially with respect to how it handles sorting by time. See lsseq --help for --time, -t and --onlyShow options.

This package also includes two helpful command-line utilities (expandseq and condenseseq) that expand and condense lists of frame numbers into a fairly standard format used by many computer-graphics programs and CG-production studios.

How to install lsseq, expandseq and condenseseq on your computer

To install these commands on your system follow these steps (you need root privileges).

1. First make sure you have python version 3.x (x >= 6) installed on your machine, you can do this simply by typing python3 at the command prompt. If you are told "command not found", then you need to download and install it, there are many helpful websites to get this going, not the least of which is Python.org.

2. Download lsseq-2.3.2.tar.gz assuming that the latest version is 2.3.2 (if not just grab the latest one), you can find all versions in the dist directory of this repo: jrowellfx/lsseq/dist

3. Uncompress the file:

   $ tar -xvzf lsseq-2.3.2.tar.gz
   

4. install the commands and supporting python module:

   $ cd lsseq-2.3.2
   $ sudo python3 setup.py install
   

5. ...that's it! You should be able to run the commands lsseq, expandseq and condenseseq now.

To test lsseq properly cd into a directory containing frames from an image sequence then lsseq the contents of the directory.

If you don't have one handy you can try this to test it.

$ cd ~
$ mkdir tmp
$ cd tmp
$ touch aaa.001.tif aaa.002.tif aaa.003.tif aaa.004.tif aaa.005.tif
$ lsseq
aaa.[001-005].tif z:[1-5]

Note the z:[1-5] which is telling you that the frames aaa.[001-005].tif have zero length, and if you had generated those with a renderer I'm guessing you'd need to rerender them.

Type:

$ lsseq --help
$ expandseq --help
$ condenseseq --help

for much more useful info.

Please contact j a m e s <at> a l p h a - e l e v e n . c o m with any bug reports, suggestions or oodles of praise as the case may be.

If you want everthing in the lsseq repo:

$ git clone [e-mail]:jrowellfx/lsseq.git