Cache file based on canonical path of image (for symlinks)

[ronanM]

In my workflow I use many different symlinks to original images.

/path/to/originals/original_01.cr2
/path/to/originals/original_01.cr2.pp3

/some/path/link1_to_original_01.cr2
/some/path/link1_to_original_01.cr2.pp3

/another/path/link2_to_original_01.cr2
/another/path/link2_to_original_01.cr2.pp3

Rawtherapee will create a cache file for each file (original and symlinks).

Is it possible to create only one cache file for original and reuse it for all the symlinks targeting this original ?

See also: readlink --help

[Hombre57]

@ronanM RT create an MD5 number of the canonical filename (including the whole path) to handle the case where the same file is located in different folder, so it's done by design.

[ronanM]

I'm not sure that's currently works like that.

I have lot of duplicate files (same content) in cache/images.

[heckflosse]

@ronanM It's done by design to have one cache file for each {path}/{image file} combination

[ronanM]

In my exemple I will have 3 files in cache/images not 1 (as needed).

[heckflosse]

With current code it's not possible.

[heckflosse]

Though the idea is interesting. I will have a look.

[Hombre57]

@heckflosse Why would this idea be interesting ? On the contrary, the actual way let Linux users create multiple processing of the same file thanks to symlink. Do you really want to remove this collateral feature ?

[ronanM]

@Hombre57 In my use case .pp3 files are also linked, not only the image files.

With this trick, I've lot of links organized by combination of date/iso/panoramaSources/ranks/type/... with several orderings (workaround for #3317).

[heckflosse]

@Hombre57 It would reduce the amount of disk space needed to store the cache files in case you use symlinks.

[heckflosse]

@Hombre57

the actual way let Linux users create multiple processing of the same file thanks to symlink. Do you really want to remove this collateral feature ?

Not only Linux users. Symlinks also work on windows.

For sure I dont want to remove that feature. But the cache could be improved by not storing duplicate data.

[heckflosse]

@Hombre57 try this on windows:

1) copy a raw (foo.pef) into a folder c:\hombre 2) start cmd 3) cd to c:\hombre 4) call mklink foo1.pef foo.pef 5) Start RT and open folder c:\hombre 6) close RT 7) open Windows explorer 8) go to your RT-cache images folder

you will find two files with same content. One for foo.pef and another one for foo1.pef

That's what I want to improve: Only one cache file for both