Sort files by filename

[Les]

On Tue, 2007-07-31 at 15:12 -0400, Mark Haney wrote:
> Les Mikesell wrote:
> 
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> Is there a reason why rsync cannot be used for this?
> >>
> >> Unfortunately, yes, due to the method that I receive the files, ie 
> >> from another application that has it's own mechanism to feed the files 
> >> to client machines.  I really wish this wasn't the case, but I have to 
> >> live with what I got.
> > 
> > If you request the resends with http you could use wget with the option 
> > to only transfer if the server's copy is newer than yours, and just ask 
> > for all of them every time.
> > 
> > Or, if you can construct the (sorted)list of all the names you expect to 
> > have you can:
> > 
> > ls * | comm -13 - /path/to/list
> > 
> > and get the list of names in the list but not in the directory.
> > 
> 
> 
> With apologies to the 2 Les', the situation isn't like that and I 
> apologize if I've not been clear.  The application that I'm working with 
>   is running on a server that simply relays the data to all our 
> customers, it doesn't store a copy of the files and then feed them.  The 
> NWS weather data requires as close to real-time performance and the 
> 'series of tubes' allows.  That said, I'm running another server that 
> runs the same application but is designed to pull the data feed and then 
> store the files locally.  I /can/ store the files on the primary server, 
> and I have, but this is a production server that feeds 13MB/hr for each 
> of the 60 or so radar sites it handles 24/7 so I don't like asking it to 
> do more than it does.
> 
> So, in essence I'm stuck with these files being dumped on a server via a 
> proprietary method.  So I need to sort the files and check for missing 
> ones on the filesystem.
Sort will give you the list.  I don't know about sorting on a substring
with a command other than creating one.  In C, you could read the
directory, then choose the substring using parsing, and finally look at
the last two characters prior to the period to get the sequence and look
for missing files.  Do you know the first number and last number?  If
not, then this won't work, because the first file and last file would
not have partners on each side to help you figure out if it was
missing.  

   I would then guess that the sourcing application is using a stream,
and if so, then you may be able to "T" the stream to get some
information from it.  However, no matter what method you choose you
won't know about the first and last without some indication from the
source about what those files' index numbers would be.

    This is not a simple matter.  I would normally suggest that you
approach the original vendor to see if they are checking that the files
are opened correctly.  There may be a problem where the files are not
properly opened, or a queuing issue that makes them appear out of order,
and if that is the case, how are they dealing with that?  In other
words, how do you know if the file really exists?  Especially the first
and last.

	Handling it with a bash script means the files have to exist already,
anyway, so that is not the limitation of the rsync method.  And if the
issue is "realtime", the networking delays are a problem anyway unless
the files are being sent by a VPN type architecture where the routing is
consistant.  Otherwise routing delays could cause you additional
problems.  In addition, how do you check the data for security?  Is it
encrypted, compressed or tokenized in some way with checksums and so
forth?  I know that these questions appear out of order to the question
you asked, but they deal with how the data is being handled, and that in
turn deals with the issues of delays and file appearance scheduling.
Which in turn affects how you might choose to access them with the least
delay and overhead.

> 
> The early suggestions were great and I'm trying each one and tweaking to 
> see if I can make them work with what I have.  But any additional bash 
> tips would be helpful as I am pressed for an answer to this issue.
> 
I primarily code in C and do not use bash or pearl much because the
overhead of scripts was too great for the applications I was working on.
Remote files have a whole different set of issues, from where they are
located, to the routing and delays as I discussed above, to how they are
verified for completeness, and the sequence of appearance.  

	Using C, you could open the directory, sort the list, compare for a
desired sequence from a starting value to an ending value and pass out a
list of missing files, and it would take only milliseconds, primarily
limited by disk access speed.  

Regards,
Les H