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localUrl_converter.rb.org

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convert localUrl in Mendeley Desktop sqlite after syncing

Synopsis

We have multiple machines we want to sync refs with Mendeley Desktop. For files, we run our own VCS repo and we sync with that. It turns out that even if you symlink ~/Library/Application Support/Mendeley Desktop/Downloaded, i.e.:

ln -s /PATH/TO/YOUR/PDF/DIR ~/Library/Application Support/Mendeley Desktop/Downloaded

across all machines, since Mendeley Desktop uses absolute filepaths in the local sqlite db file, it won’t pick up the files. The simplest solution then seems to directly sync the sqlite file; we now added this file to our repo and sync this too. For the “master” machine we then symlink from the repo’s sqlite file to ~/Library/Application Support/Mendeley Desktop/

If you opt for this method, after you sync your sqlite file in a “non master” machine, move it into ~/Library/Application Support/Mendeley Desktop/, you can use this script to rename the localUrl in the sqlite file to point to the proper location in your machine.

Usage

  • modify mendeley_email in ruby block to your mendeley account email.

Execute this file directly with ruby localUrl_converter.rb.org

Or, if you have org-babel with ruby support, C-c C-c in the ruby block.

DRY_RUN is set to true, which causes it to just print out sql statements and not change anything

when you are happy with the sql you see, change DRY_RUN to false and re-execute. Good luck!

DRY_RUN = true
mendeley_email = "YOUR_MENDELEY_EMAIL@"

require "sqlite3"
require "fileutils"
local_username = `whoami`.chomp

dc_conversion = {
  /^file:\/\/\/Users\/[^\/]+\/Library/ => "file:///Users/#{local_username}/Library",
  # set up other conversion mappings here if you need any
}

DB_PATH = "/Users/#{local_username}/Library/Application Support/Mendeley Desktop/#{mendeley_email}@www.mendeley.com.sqlite"
BACKUP_PATH = "#{DB_PATH}.back"

if File.exists? BACKUP_PATH then
  print "the backup file:\n  #{BACKUP_PATH}\nexists. overwrite? [Y/n] "
  if gets.chomp != 'Y' then
    puts "\nyou didn't say Y... so do something about it!\n"
    exit
  end
end
puts "backing up file..."
puts "writing: #{BACKUP_PATH}"
FileUtils.cp(DB_PATH, BACKUP_PATH, {:verbose => true})

db = SQLite3::Database.open DB_PATH

ls_row = db.execute("SELECT * FROM Files")

ls_row.each do |hash, localUrl|
  dc_conversion.each do |search, replace|
    localUrl.gsub!(search, replace)
  end
  sql = "UPDATE Files SET localUrl = '#{SQLite3::Database.quote(localUrl)}' WHERE hash = '#{hash}'"
  puts sql

  db.execute(sql) unless DRY_RUN
end
puts "\nDONE!\n"