How to find and then compare similar files in Dropbox folder?

Question

I am using Dropbox, and I wind up with a number of files like:
prefs (home's conflicted copy 2009-07-20).js

What I would like to do is find all the "conflicted copy..." files and then compare each with its unconflicted version.

For example, the following command gives me the result:

$ find . -name "*onflict*" -exec ls -ld {} \;
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric eric 24203 2009-07-19 14:42 ./prefs (home's conflicted copy 2009-07-20).js

but I would like an output like:

-rw-r--r-- 1 eric eric 24429 2009-07-21 11:43 prefs.js
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric eric 24203 2009-07-19 14:42 prefs (home's conflicted copy 2009-07-20).js

and then I can decide what I want to do with the conflicted copy. Any ideas?

Answer 1

I figured out something that seems to works, but I would welcome suggestions to improve it, including making it cleaner:

find . -name "*onflict*" | while read name; do ls -ld "$name"; ls -ld "${name/ (*onflict*)/}"; echo -n "$name" | xargs -0 -p rm ; echo ; done

In a more easily read and typed format:

find . -name "*onflict*" | \
while read name; do 
    ls -ld "$name"
    ls -ld "${name/ (*onflict*)/}"
    echo -n "$name" | xargs -0 -p rm 
    echo 
done

References:

• Using the shell to "mill" over the results of the initial find command- a pipemill
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_(Unix)#Pipemill

• Manipulating strings in the shell
  http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8919
  http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/string-manipulation.html#SUBSTRREPL00

• Using xargs
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xargs
  http://ss64.com/bash/xargs.html

Answer 2

After you've matched the conflicted filename, use a regular expression to replace the parenthesis and space with a star and do, for example:

ls -d "prefs*.js"