Hello There,
I’me trying for 3 hours to extract date from file name.
I’ve read 10 thread about this.
I’ve tried using chatgpt.
Unable to understand if my problem comes from localisation or whaever.
Unable to understand if there is many different date for the same file.
My goal is to convert part of file name in “creation date” (ideally) or at least in “date of personnal meta data”.
When asking many many script to ChatGPT unable to correct it :
tell application "DEVONthink 3"
set theRecords to (every record of current database whose type is "file")
repeat with theRecord in theRecords
set theName to name of theRecord
set theDate to extract date from theName
if theDate is not missing value then
set creation date of theRecord to theDate
end if
end repeat
end tell
on extract date from theName
set dateString to ""
set dateRegex to "(?<=-\\s)\\d{8}(?=\\s-)"
try
set dateString to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of theName & " | grep -Eo " & quoted form of dateRegex
end try
if dateString is not "" then
set yearPart to text 1 thru 4 of dateString
set monthPart to text 5 thru 6 of dateString
set dayPart to text 7 thru 8 of dateString
set theDate to date (yearPart & "-" & monthPart & "-" & dayPart)
return theDate
else
return missing value
end if
end extract date
DEVONthink gets the creation date from the Finder when the document is added to the database.
And a PDF metadata date is not the file’s creation date. You are talking about two different things there. See the Appendix > Hidden Preferences section of the built-in Help and manual for the UsePDFDocumentDates command. Also, it is not required to use Terminal to enable this function. Read the note at the top of the section. Lastly, you will need to do a File > Rebuild Database to modify the creation dates on the already imported documents.
When asking many many script to ChatGPT unable to correct it
This is unsurprising and not an avenue I would even bother with. At the best, you’ll get a poorly written and slightly functional bit of code but (1) the code likely won’t be fully effective and (2) what will you have learned?
Your filenames in the examples here are very uniform. Is this what you expect from all the input documents?
Given that I prefer Human Intelligence 1.0 vastly over ChatGPT in whatever version, I’m not going to fix this mess of code.
Just some notes:
It would certainly help if you stated your goals clearly in written, giving example file names and the desired results. On one hand, writing forces the writer to clear their thoughts and express their desires clearly. On the other hand, it makes it easier for the readers to grasp what the person on the other end intends.
As it stands, this script will never run in a smart rule. Please read the chapter “Automation” in the DT manual to learn how these scripts must look.
The regular expression is way too complicated for my taste. If you know that all dates are from this century, something like (2\d{7}) should do.
Instead of using AppleScript and some half-baked shell commands, one could use JavaScript, which already supports regular expressions.
In that case, I’d use a regular expression like -\s+(2\d{3})(\d\d)(\d\d)\s+- and access year, month and day by the expression’s capturing groups 1, 2 and 3.
And I, of course, concur with @bluefrog’s assessment: ChatGPT will at best throw bad, working code at you. At worst, the code doesn’t work. And you never learn anything from it.
In fact I can manage large building site and engine management tuning but really really I don’t know to code. I’ve tried CHATGPT just because I thought it was easier. I do not like to use CHATGPT not even to summarize a 100 word pdf
Thank you for reply.
I have to admint IA was not helpful and does not help nor to learn or understand. I do really have no time to learn to code, not this year at least
For example I absolutely don’t know what are the differnces between apple and java script.
What I can they is I have 2000 and even 3000 files encoded this way :
“Name of the company - YYYYMMDD - Objet of the file”.
It is not possible to change every type of custom metadata via a smart rule without using the Execute Script function.
Is there a reason it must be a Date data type?
@BLUEFROGdid show you how to get a date in a custom metadata field. You cannot, however, set the creation or modification date to an arbitrary value, it seems. At least not with a simple smart rule. A script, however, can do that
Here, DateDuFicher is a custom metadata field of type date, which you set using following @BLUEFROG’s example. Add this script as an additional “execute script” action after Change DateDuFichier, selecting “JavaScript” and adding the code to the “Edit Script” box (delete everything that is in there first!).
You end up with the file date as the creation date, and an unnecessary custom metadata field “DateDuFichier”. Tant pis.
Hello.
It is absolutely not mandatory. It is a must have the way I work but can try with an another way.
Thank you for this script.
I’m going to give a try.
Previouly I’ve create a custom metadata because I thought it was the way to proceed. Not a big deal if I do not use anymore. I prefer original embedded (?) data instead of custom metadata, for sure
But finally I can try to modify “create date” or “modify date”.
Thank you again.
As the script stands now, it relies on the custom metadata field “DateDuFichier”. That is by no means necessary, the script could simply extract the date information from the file name and set the creation date accordingly.
Not complicated, just more code:
function performsmartrule(records) {
const app = Application("DEVONthink 3");
records.forEach(r => {
const match = r.name().match(/(.*?)\s+-\s+(\d{4})(\d\d)(\d\d)\s+-\s+(.*)/);
if (match) {
const company = match[1];
const objet = match[5];
const date = new Date(`match[2]-match[3]-match4`);
r.creationDate = date;
app.addCustomMetaData(company, {for: 'company', to: r});
app.addCustomMetaData(objet, {for: 'objet', to: r});
}
})
)
This code is not tested at all. It does not set the modification date (that would be an additional line), since I don’t see the point of having identical creation and modification dates. If needed, that’s left as an exercise to the reader.
This script can be the sole action in a smart rule (Execute Script/JavaScript). No need for “Scan Name” etc.
