Idea: shot-scraper multi --if-not-exists or --skip-existing

[simonw]

Only does the screenshot if the output: file doesn't exist yet.

This could be used to build a very neat GitHub mechanism for creating a portfolio of screenshots of your projects.

[simonw]

I don't really like either of these option names.

[simonw]

Options:

• shot-scraper multi shots.yml --if-not-exists
• shot-scraper multi shots.yml --skip-existing
• shot-scraper multi shots.yml --skip

Are there other command-line tools with similar options I can borrow syntax for?

[simonw]

I tried using GPT-3 for inspiration but it didn't come up with anything better:

Command line option names for an option that skips a file if it already exists:

--skip-if-existing
--skip-existing
--skip-if-file-exists
--skip-if-duplicate

Shorter options:

-s
-S

Single word options:

--skip
--existing

[simonw]

This prompt worked better:

Command line tools with a skip existing option:

1. cp with the -n or --no-clobber option
2. mv with the -n or --no-clobber option
3. ln with the -n or --no-target-directory option
4. tar with the --skip-existing option

[simonw]

I think I like -n/--no-clobber here, since it's already used by cp and mv.

(Though on macOS at least running man cp and man mv shows that they use the -n version but don't have the --no-clobber longer alias setup)

[simonw]

Updated documentation: https://github.com/simonw/shot-scraper/blob/1007d0f2135926f87dc45b2ad13dabfdf22312fc/README.md#taking-multiple-screenshots

[simonw]

Feedback on Twitter: --no-clobber makes no sense at all to non-English speakers, whereas --skip-existing does: https://twitter.com/kim_vanwyk/status/1516114233255202827

wget calls it no-clobber which I understood when I read it. I did wonder though if "clobber" is meaningful to non-British-english speakers. It strikes me as British slang.

I think I'm going to embrace the Britishness of it though.