pile

Semantics File Names for Document Management

Pile provides a set of tools, that allow you to work files that follow some human-readable conventions, that add semantic structure into file names. Example:

2017-04-04 #MChoic Member List 2017.xls
2017-04-04 #Finanzamt (Steuernummer . 1231012393).pdf
2017-04-05 #EXCITE Notes on Data Repositories (Author . Max Mustermann).pdf
2017-04-06 #ARAG #Invoive 14.2EUR.pdf
2017-02-24 Pictures Hochzeit Max+Maria Mustermann.tar.gz

The following elements are recognized by pile semantic filenames:

• date. ISO date strings at the beginning of the file-name are recognized as dates (^\d\d\d\d-\d\d-\d\d )
• extension. Extensions like .pdf or .tar.gz are recognized at the end of the filename (([.][a-z]{1-4})*$)
• tags. The syntax #<tagname> to categorize documents with tags.
• attributes. The syntax (<key> . <value>) let's us attach attributes as key-value pairs.

pile-cli

The pile cli pile provides the following features to manage documents from the command line

• Validate existing filenames pile
• List documents with parsed semantic fields. pile ls
• Query the document pile for tags, key-value pairs or names using SQL type queries. pile select ...
• Parse and export document metadata from filenames as CSV, JSON, sqlitedb pile export ...

pile-ui

• Import view, that helps with annotating new documents

• List view with instant-filter and preview

Design Goals

• Seamless integration with existing tooling. Keep using finder, dropbox, git, etc. to manage your documents.

• Don't duplicate functionality that is covered by established tools. I.e. don't do backups or version control. We create and manage semantic file names.

• Support File Systems provided by Linux, OSX and Windows. (No use of \/:)

• No use of characters that can interfere with command line usage (&|). We do allow space characters.