add escape_var hack

Makes it easy to find files with duplicate contents, anyway.. :)

3 files changed, 26 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/doc/git-annex.mdwn b/doc/git-annex.mdwn
index 7ad3fac69..2d0d2597e 100644
--- a/doc/git-annex.mdwn
+++ b/doc/git-annex.mdwn
@@ -437,8 +437,10 @@ subdirectories).
   Specifies a custom output format. The value is a format string, 
   in which '${var}' is expanded to the value of a variable. To right-justify
   a variable with whitespace, use '${var;width}' ; to left-justify
-  a variable, use '${var;-width}'. Also, '\\n' is a newline, '\\000' is a NULL,
-  etc.
+  a variable, use '${var;-width}'; to escape unusual characters in a variable,
+  use '${escaped_var}'
+
+  Also, '\\n' is a newline, '\\000' is a NULL, etc.
 
 * -c name=value
 
diff --git a/doc/tips/finding_duplicate_files.mdwn b/doc/tips/finding_duplicate_files.mdwn
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..94fc85400
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/tips/finding_duplicate_files.mdwn
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+Maybe you had a lot of files scattered around on different drives, and you
+added them all into a single git-annex repository. Some of the files are
+surely duplicates of others.
+
+While git-annex stores the file contents efficiently, it would still
+help in cleaning up this mess if you could find, and perhaps remove
+the duplicate files.
+
+Here's a command line that will show duplicate sets of files grouped together:
+
+	git annex find --include '*' --format='${file} ${escaped_key}\n' | \
+		sort -k2 | uniq --all-repeated=separate -f1 | \
+		sed 's/ [^ ]*$//'
+
+Here's a command line that will remove one of each duplicate set of files:
+
+	git annex find --include '*' --format='${file} ${escaped_key}\n' | \
+		sort -k2 | uniq --repeated -f1 | sed 's/ [^ ]*$//' | \
+		xargs -d '\n' git rm
+
+--[[Joey]] 
diff --git a/doc/todo/wishlist:_Provide_a___34__git_annex__34___command_that_will_skip_duplicates.mdwn b/doc/todo/wishlist:_Provide_a___34__git_annex__34___command_that_will_skip_duplicates.mdwn
index ca18afc57..933653578 100644
--- a/doc/todo/wishlist:_Provide_a___34__git_annex__34___command_that_will_skip_duplicates.mdwn
+++ b/doc/todo/wishlist:_Provide_a___34__git_annex__34___command_that_will_skip_duplicates.mdwn
@@ -25,4 +25,4 @@ I want this because I have copies of various of mine (photos, in particular) sca
 
 (As I write this, I realize it's possible to parse the destination of the symlink in a way that does this..)
 
-> 
+> [[done]]; see [[tips/finding_duplicate_files]] --[[Joey]]