[Tutor] How to list/process files with identical character strings

[mark murphy]

Hello Python Tutor Community,

This is my first post and I am just getting started with Python, so I
apologize in advance for any lack of etiquette.

I have a directory of several thousand daily satellite images that I need
to process.  Approximately 300 of these images are split in half, so in
just these instances there will be two files for one day.  I need to merge
each pair of split images into one image.

The naming convention of the files is as follows: TYYYYDDDHHMMSS, where:
T= one character satellite code
YYYY = 4 digit year
DDD = Julian date
HH = 2-digit hour
MM = 2-digit minute
SS = 2-digit second

What I hope to be able to do is scan the directory, and for each instance
where there are two files where the first 8 characters (TYYYYDDD) are
identical, run a process on those two files and place the output (named
TYYYYDDD) in a new directory.

The actual processing part should be easy enough for me to figure out.  The
part about finding the split files (each pair of files with the same first
8 characters) and setting those up to be processed is way beyond me.  I've
done several searches for examples and have not been able to find what I am
looking for.

Can anyone help?

Thanks so much!

Mark


-- 
Mark S. Murphy
Alumnus
Department of Geography
msmurphy at alumni.unc.edu
951-252-4325
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