Directory of Snapshots

I have snapshots (photos) that I load off my camera's memory card, and store in a folder. Sometimes I have videos, and occasionally plain audio too (the camera can record just sound).

Additionally, my wife, and kids have their point-and-shoots too.

I have a workflow where I dump the photos on to a designated folder on a linux samba share, and then run this script which identifies the photos, auto-rotates the portrait picturs, and renames them according to the date and time the picture was taken (rather than a sequential number from the camera).

This way, assuming the various cameras have the correct clock-time set, the different cameras all have photos that are named similar things (and can be sorted alphabetically to get them in chronological order too.

Notes:

• the jhead program the script calls will rename/rotate the photos, and the name will become something like: Img20140217-164850.20.jpg

• the jhead also identifies that some pictures may have 'raw' partners, for example, my Nikon camera takes a picture called DSC1234.JPG and simultaneously the picture DSC1234.NEF (the raw photo). The command jhead -aNEF -ft -autorot -n DSC.JPG will identify the JPG photo, strip the .JPG extensions, and, because there is also the -aNEF argument, will rename the matching NEF file to the same base-name (Img) as the JPG.... in other words, for the files DSC1234.JPG and DSC1234.JPG, the jhead program will produce, for example, both Img20140217-164850.20.jpg and Img20140217-164850.20.NEF

• the script deals with both Canon, and Nikon raw files (RW2 and NEF respectively)

The script is relatively simple, but has a fair amount of repetition. Any suggestions for how to improve it?

``
#!/usr/bin/tcsh -f

#cd /valuable/picxfer

# Do the .jpg first because the jhead program will write .jpg even for .JPG input.
echo 'Checking DSC*.jpg'
if ( tcsh -f -c "ls -1 DSC*.jpg >& /dev/null" && echo yes` == "yes" ) then
jhead -anef -ft -autorot -n DSC*.jpg
else

Your if conditions can be simplified. Instead of this:

if ( `tcsh -f -c "ls -1 DSC*.jpg >& /dev/null" && echo yes` == "yes" ) then

You could write like this:

if ( `ls DSC*.jpg >& /dev/null && echo x` != "" ) then

That is:

• you don't need to spawn a tcsh sub-shell

• you don't need the -1 for ls to list files in a single column because you redirect that to /dev/null anyway

• the `... part will only output anything if there were files, so you don't need yes == yes`, it's enough to check for emptiness

If you don't mind using Bash instead of Tcsh, then the ifs can be even more simple:

if ls DSC*.jpg &> /dev/null; then

A lot less useless fluff.

With Bash you could simplify the repetitive blocks with a function, for example:

check_files() {
    glob=$1
    flags=$2
    nomsg=$3
    echo Checking "$glob"
    if ls $glob &>/dev/null; then
        jhead -a$flags -ft -autorot -n $glob
    else
        echo $nomsg
    fi
    echo
}

check_files 'DSC*.jpg' nef 'no Nikon jpg files'
check_files 'DSC*.JPG' NEF 'no Nikon JPG files'
check_files 'p*.jpg' rw2 'no Canon jpg files'
check_files 'P*.JPG' RW2 'no Canon JPG files'

StackExchange Code Review Q#48295, answer score: 3