2007_12_01_archive

Introducing Logsessive

So I've been using iChat since it debuted, and had the automatic chat

logging turned on for most of that. So every time I send or receive an

IM, it gets saved for posterity (for better or for worse).

When iChat first started logging chats, it was only naming them with

the name of the other person and an incrementing number- chats with me

are "Dan Kuehling #2", "Dan Kuehling #3", and on. Later on, I think in

one of the versions of iChat for Panther, Apple started adding date

and time stamps to the chats- "Dan Kuehling on 2007-12-06 at 22:35".

Now, in Leopard, Apple's finally decided to do the smart thing and

sort all of these chats into dated folders, so all of the chats for a

particular day are in a folder named something like "2007-12-06".

Now that's great, but the obsessive part of me noticed one problem

here: The logs that iChat created before Leopard are still sitting

there by the thousands, numbered logs alongside dated logs alongside

Leopard's chat folders.

It's ugly. It's messy. It's stupid. THERE MUST BE ORDER!

I had to fix it.

So I'd been meaning to learn Ruby. It's got some serious fans at PSIG,

most notably the group's young rock-star Victoria :-)

My task was clear- write a Ruby script to sort these free-floating

logs into the folders. So I learned Ruby (or at least what Ruby I know

now) the way I always do- Google enough to write a really, really

simple little test (even just "Hello World" to start), then expand on

it. Add string handling and regexes (which work GREAT in Ruby, by the

way), filesystem access with the Dir and File classes, and Date

handling. Before I knew it, I'd written a script that walked the

~/Documents/iChats directory, read the date out of the filename,

created a directory based on that date (if it doesn't already exist),

and move the log in there. Then, after some work on how to get Mac OS

X to give up the real creation date of a file (/usr/bin/mdls -name

kMDItemFSCreationDate filename is the key), I got the numbered chat

transcripts to take the plunge behind their dated counterparts.

So, without further ado, here's my brilliant Ruby creation:

Logsessive

The name derives from the how excessive it looks to have all of those

logs splayed across the iChats directory and the obsessive nature of

wanting everything all neat and tidy. Logsessive!

It includes both the Ruby file and an easy GUI application created

with Platypus, if you're just as obsessive as I am but don't want to

look at the Ruby. (But please do!)