This is not a debian question per se (more like a Linux bash one), but I wasn't able to find an answer on the Internet.
Here is first the problem I am having before you start reading a conspiracy theory into it ;-) I need to somehow map URL on the web to a local file, but you can't do that for two main reasons: 1) URLs are free text 2) which people take to their heart's content. Take for example: https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/nietzsche-und-der-deutsche-geist-band-4-ausbreitung-und-wirkung-des-nietzscheschen-werkes-im-deutschen-sprachraum-bis-zum-ende-des-zweiten-weltkrieges-ein-schrifttumsverzeichnis-der-jahre-1867-1945-ergnzungen-berichtigungen-und-gesamtverzeichnisse-zu-den-bnden-i-iii-9783110202861-9783110189865-3110189860.html that file and the pdf you would download I need to map to a local directory looking like: ... /pub/dokumen/qdownload/ ... but the file name (excluding the extension) is 306 characters long, which Windows NTFS would not swallow. There may be also funky rules regarding character sets and where in a string certain chars may be used; so, as a way to work around those kinds of problems I: a) encode the string name as base64 b) calculate the sha256sum of §a c) use §b as file name (of course, leaving the original extension as it is) d) include a "§b_file_name.txt" plain text file decriptor which only content is the actual prehash name of that file. https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/nietzsche-und-der-deutsche-geist-band-4-ausbreitung-und-wirkung-des-nietzscheschen-werkes-im-deutschen-sprachraum-bis-zum-ende-des-zweiten-weltkrieges-ein-schrifttumsverzeichnis-der-jahre-1867-1945-ergnzungen-berichtigungen-und-gesamtverzeichnisse-zu-den-bnden-i-iii-9783110202861-9783110189865-3110189860.html _TXT="nietzsche-und-der-deutsche-geist-band-4-ausbreitung-und-wirkung-des-nietzscheschen-werkes-im-deutschen-sprachraum-bis-zum-ende-des-zweiten-weltkrieges-ein-schrifttumsverzeichnis-der-jahre-1867-1945-ergnzungen-berichtigungen-und-gesamtverzeichnisse-zu-den-bnden-i-iii-9783110202861-9783110189865-3110189860" _B64TXTENC=$(printf '%s' "${_TXT}" | base64 ) echo "// __ \$_B64TXTENC: |${_B64TXTENC}|" _B64TXTDEC=$(printf '%s' "${_B64TXTENC}" | base64 --decode) echo "// __ \$_B64TXTDEC: |${_B64TXTDEC}|" if [[ "${_TXT}" == "${_B64TXTDEC}" ]]; then echo "// __ [[ \${_TXT} == \${_B64TXTDEC} ]]: |${_TXT}|" _SHA256=$(printf '%s' "${_TXT}" | sha256sum --text ) echo "// __ \$_SHA256: |${_SHA256}|" fi // __ $_SHA256: |7d5895cb24ab49692a8ad495e036074fec8e61b22040544f02a9b69c926dbdeb -| I am trying to avoid funky characters and sha256sum --text still generates them!?! I work like this because I need replicate the original URL as a local path in a way that would be compatible any file system. Do you know of a better way to deal with such issues? lbrtchx
