Sweeper

Sweeper - the Swiss Army Knife of recording management

Overview

Sweeper is a Custom Firmware package for managing recordings in a variety of ways using custom rules. It started life as a simple utility for tidying up one-off recordings in the top level of the My Video area into folders, hence its name, but has since evolved into a multi-purpose tool.

Once installed, the rules that apply to the recordings and series folders at the top level of the My Video area can be accessed via the Sweeper icon on the main menu or toolbar. It is also possible to define rules for other folders by selecting Sweeper Rules from the OPT+ menu alongside the folder in the web interface.

User Interface

The main sweeper rule screen shows the rules which are currently defined for the folder followed by a set of buttons which can be used to add new rules, save or discard any changes, view or test the configuration and optionally show a textual representation of each rule, updated in real-time as changes are made.

At the bottom of the screen is an option to add a pre-defined ruleset to the rules already on screen. A set of rules can be chosen from the dropdown list and then added to the list of rules with a click on the Add to rules button; once there they can be individually modified, disabled or deleted as required.

All changes made are immediately reflected on screen but no changes are made to the system configuration until the Save changes button is pressed and confirmed.

Anatomy of a Rule

Each rule is shown in a box with an icon to the top left indicating whether it is a file or folder rule...

Tokens

Several of the rule actions take parameters, and these parameters can contain tokens that are replaced with information from the recording which is being processed. For example, you could use the Move recording to folder action with an argument of %genre which would place Films in a folder called Films, Children's recordings in one called Children, etc.

The available tokens are shown below:

%orig	The original version of the item being modified. For example to append _backup to the filename in a setfilename action, you would set the filename to %orig_backup.
%title	Recording title.
%filename	Recording filename.
%basename	The base name of the recording filename (without the directory and file extension).
%folder	Complete folder name (including /media/My Video or equivalent).
%bfolder	Base Folder name (without /media/My Video or equivalent).
%synopsis	Recording synopsis.
%epname	The name of the episode as extracted from the recording synopsis. Reliant on the broadcasters providing the data.
%series	The number of the series (extracted from the synopsis, 0 if not found).
%episode	The episode number (extracted from the synopsis, 0 if not found).
%episodes	The number of episodes in the series (extracted from the synopsis, 0 if not found).
%epdescr	A representation of the series and episode data found in the synopsis, e.g. s15e5/10. Unknown fields are replaced with a ?
%channel	Channel name.
%lcn	Logical channel number.
%genre	Recording genre.
%definition	Definition of recording (HD or SD).
%duration	Recording duration (in minutes).
%timestamp	Recording start time as YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.
%yyyymmmdd	Recording start time as YYYYMMDD.
%hhmm	Recording start time as HHMM.
%hh	Recording start hour as HH.
%mm	Recording start minute as MM.
%year	Recording start year as YYYY.
%2digityear	Recording start year as YY.
%month	Recording start month number 1-12.
%2digitmonth	Recording start month number 01-12.
%date	Recording start date 1-31.
%2digitdate	Recording start date 01-31.
%shortday	Recording start day (short form, e.g. Mon)
%longday	Recording start day (long form, e.g. Monday)
%shortmonth	Recording start month (short form, e.g. Jan)
%longmonth	Recording start month (long form, e.g. January)
%etimestamp	Recording end time as YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.
%eyyyymmmdd	Recording end time as YYYYMMDD.
%ehhmm	Recording end time as HHMM.
%ehh	Recording end hour as HH.
%emm	Recording end minute as MM.
%replace:string:search:replace:	Perform a substitution on string replacing search with replace. The delimiter (shown here as :) can be anything as long as the same character is used in all three places. Requires Sweeper version 2.1.1.
%regsub:string:search:replace:	As replace but supports regular expressions. Requires Sweeper version 2.1.1.
%asfilename:string:	Convert the argument to a filename as the Humax software would, replacing reserved characters with underscores.
%asuniqfilename:string:	As above but if the resulting filename already exists then append a number to make it unique. Requires Sweeper version 2.1.1.
%format:formatspec:string:	Format a string using a Jim format specification. Example: %format:%06d:%episode: returns the episode number padded with leading zeros to make it up to 6 characters. Example: %format:08b:%episode: returns the episode number in binary.
%%variablename	Replace with the contents of the named variable (set previously with a set action).
%replace:search:replace:	Deprecated, use three argument version instead. Perform a substitution on the result replacing search with replace. The delimiter (shown here as :) can be anything as long as the same character is used in all three places.
%regsub:search:replace:	Deprecated, use three argument version instead. As replace but supports regular expressions.

Available actions

Action	Description	Parameter
continue	Do nothing and continue to next rule.	None
stop	Do nothing and stop processing rules for this folder.	None
preserve	(deprecated - use stop instead) do nothing and stop processing rules.	None
lock	Lock recording and continue to next rule.	None
unlock	Unlock recording and continue to next rule.	None
move	Move the recording to a folder.	Folder name relative to the system media root, e.g. (Films/Children)
movecreate	move the recording to a folder and create it if it doesn't exist.	Folder name relative to the system media root, e.g. (Films/Children)
renamefile	rename the files that make up the recording and continue to the next rule. The argument will usually contain tokens that are replaced with values from the recording being processed.	New filename base (no extension) e.g. %title_%yyyymmdd_%hhmm
settitle	set the media list title for the recording. Tokens can be used and the %orig token contains the current title.	New title
setguidance	set the guidance text for the recording.	New guidance text or blank to remove any guidance rating for the recording.
delete	delete the recording or, if undelete is installed, move it to the bin.	None
fileunder	Folders only; look for another existing with the same name as the new series recording and, if found, move the new recordings into it.	Folder name from which to start the search (e.g. Films) - leave blank to search from the top level.
fileundercreate	Folders only; as fileunder but if no folder is found then create a new one.	Folder name from which to start the search (e.g. Films) - leave blank to search from the top level.
flag	Set a flag in the recording file.	A flag name such as 'dedup', 'shrunk', 'encrypted'
unflag	Unset a flag in the recording file.	A flag name such as 'dedup', 'shrunk', 'encrypted'
log	Output a log message (predominantly used for testing).	The message to be logged.
queue	Add the recording file to the queue named in the argument.
set	Set a variable to a value.	variablename=value

Available conditions

lastrule	True if the last rule was successfully matched.
flag	A flag against the recording, e.g. 'flag New'. Flags are Locked, New, Encrypted, Guidance, ODEncrypted, Shrunk, Deduped.
lcn	Logical channel number, e.g. 'lcn 1', 'lcn {> 1}'
duration	Recording duration in minutes, e.g. 'duration {> 60}'
schedduration	Scheduled recording duration in minutes.
size	Size in bytes
age	Age in hours (measured from recording end time).
wage	Number of hours since last watched, or from recording end time if not watched.
definition	Standard (SD) or high (HD) definition, e.g. 'definition SD'
title	Title contains ..., e.g. 'title {The Big Bang Theory}'
synopsis	Synopsis contains ...
guidance	Guidance contains ...
genre	Recording genre is.. e.g. 'genre Children'
hour	Hour of recording, e.g. 'hour {>= 21}'
now	Current time in 24-hour format, e.g. 2359
filename	Filename on disk contains ...
fflag	Folder containing the recording has a particular flag, e.g. 'fflag autodecrypt'
foldername	Folder name contains...
series	Folder rules only - true if folder was automatically created due to a scheduled recording.
bookmarks	Number of bookmarks
fileexists	Does the file specified exist? If the argument is not a complete pathname then it is taken to be relative to the recording's directory.
direxists	Does the directory specified exist? If the argument is not a complete pathname then it is taken to be relative to the recording's directory.
queue	Test whether the current recording is queued for the operation named in the parameter.
textmatch	Match an arbitrary string against a pattern. The string and pattern are separated with ~~, e.g. 'textmatch {%synopsis~~*drama*}'
intmatch	Match an arbitrary string against a numeric test. The string and test are separated with ~~, e.g. 'intmatch {%year~~> 2014}'. There must be a space between the operator and the test value.
varset	Test whether the named variable has been set.
or	True if any of the arguments are true, e.g. 'or {lcn 1 lcn 2 lcn 3}'
and	True if all arguments are true, e.g. 'and {lcn >= 1 lcn <= 3}'

In the configuration file, all conditions can be optionally prefixed with a ! to indicate negation. For example, the condition !lcn 1 means not recorded from channel 1.

String matching

When a condition takes a string argument for a match, that can either be a fixed string, a pattern or a regular expression. A fixed string is treated as a substring match - it is just looked for anywhere in the attribute. A regular expression is specified by prefixing it with a ~ character. A pattern is matched against the whole attribute and can contain the following special sequences:

*

Matches any sequence of characters in string, including a null string.

 ?

Matches any single character in string.

[chars]

Matches any character in the set given by chars. If a sequence of the form x-y appears in chars, then any character between x and y, inclusive, will match.

\x

Matches the single character x. This provides a way of avoiding the special interpretation of the characters \*?[] in pattern.