Using syncing files only comparing file name and not extension

Question

I'm trying to sync 2 folders containing audio files of multiple types (WMA, MP3, M4V,...).

I want to sync these folders but the sync process should only take into account the file names, not the extensions. So, if folder A contains "the suburbs.mp3" and folder B contains "the suburbs.m4v", the sync program should consider these 2 files the same (and not sync them).

I was looking into the documentation of rsync but I can't seem find a way to do this.

Does anyone have a suggestion, or maybe suggestions for other software that can do this?

thanks, Thomas

Answer 1

You could create empty files with all possible extensions and call rsync with --ignore-existing.

find A -type f \( -name '*.flac' -o -name '*.m4v' -o -name '*.mp3' -o '*.ogg' -o '*.wma' \) \
     -exec sh -c '
  for base; do
    base=${base%.*};
    for ext in flac m4v mp3 ogg wma; do : >>"$base.$ext"; done;
  done' _ {} +
# Do the same on B …
rsync -a --ignore-existing A B

You may be interested in mp3fs, a FUSE stackable filesystem that provides a view of a directory tree where all audio files appear as MP3. I don't think it would particularly help with your question, but it may be an alternate way to solve your problem or otherwise prove useful.