An App that prints out all the buddy file relationships among the selected files

[greg]

I just waded through some confusion on buddy file rules. Perhaps an app that lists all the buddy file relationships in a group of selected files might have utility for users. This could be useful when modifying and testing file relationships. The simplest form would be a text output similar to this:

master: ABC.NEF children: ABC.jpg, ABC2.jpg 

[Mario]

No App needed.

Use the Copy Data App for that purpose, in combination with the variable

{File.BuddyFiles}: {File.FullName}

This copies the full file name of each selected file and all buddy files (in database and file system) into the clipboard.

You can use the same variable in the Text Export module to save the data into a text file.

[greg]

Thanks Mario! That works well.

[Mario]

For a more interactive ('live') test you can just use

{File.BuddyFiles}

in the Var Toy app. This the shows you the buddy files of the focused file in the active file window.

[greg]

Yes, I've done that. It's a good quick way to see what's going on with a particular master file.

I still might put some effort into an app that formats the files the way I would prefer, especially where there are several buddy files separated by semicolons.  Having an app output directly would be easier than importing the data into a text file or excel and then parsing out multiple buddy files. I would also put in an option to strip out the master files that don't have buddy files or only have xmp files.

I'm using stacked files to associate final jpg files with their master files as I have been renaming jpgs simply because they often become fairly long showing my various editing passes. I may want to see these relationships in the same view. This would be a more advanced challenge I have yet to define.

It might be an interesting diversion along the lines of my software design interests. I'll see when time permits.

[Mario]

You can easily format the output (into one buddy per row, for example) with variable formatting functions - for the VarToy or the Copy Data App.
Of course you can also write a quick app which does what you need to do. That's what apps are for 

[greg]

Could you show a simple example of how a CRLF could be substituted for the semicolon on the buddy files? 

[Mario]

From the variables help:

replace:~;==,

and for your case probably

replace:~;=={crlf}

Note that ; has a special meaning in variables and hence the ~ to escape it.

[greg]

I was able to make that work. Thanks!