2. Rename Photos by Capture Date
1. Hello, World!
2. Rename Photos by Capture Date
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6. Generate Comprehensive File Inventory
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10. Generate Formatted Text Reports with Column Alignment
11. Analyze Sales Transactions and Generate Revenue Reports
12. Clean and Validate CSV Data
13. Convert JSON API Responses to CSV
14. Parse and Validate Configuration Files
15. Build a CLI Calculator with Argument Parsing
16. Parse and Display Weather Data from JSON
17. Build a Simple Inventory System with Classes
18. Generate Markdown Table from CSV Data
19. Aggregate Sales Data by Time Period
20. Recursive Directory Size Calculator with Filtering
21. Parse and Transform Server Configuration
22. Find and Replace Across Multiple Files
23. Build a Simple Template Engine
24. CSV Data Validator with Business Rules
25. Build a Multi-Format Log Analyzer

Challenge

Problem

Photographers often end up with hundreds of files named IMG_001.jpg, IMG_002.jpg, etc. This drill teaches you to rename files based on their capture timestamps from a metadata file, making them searchable and sortable. You'll use Ruby's file operations and date formatting to transform meaningless camera filenames into organized, dated filenames.

Difficulty: Beginner

Instructions

  1. Read the metadata.json file which contains photo filenames and their capture timestamps
  2. For each photo in the metadata, rename it to 'YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS' format based on its timestamp
  3. Preserve the original file extension
  4. Output a summary line for each renamed file: 'Renamed: [old_name] -> [new_name]'
  5. Sort the output alphabetically by original filename

Files

Editable
Read-only

Hints

Hint 1

Read the metadata.json file using File.read and parse it with JSON.parse

Hint 2

Use Time.parse to convert the ISO timestamp string into a Time object

Hint 3

Time#strftime('%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S') formats the date correctly

Hint 4

File.extname gives you the extension including the dot

Hint 5

File.rename(old_path, new_path) moves/renames the file

Hint 6

Collect results into an array, sort it, then output each line

Ruby 3.4

Provided Files (Read-only)

1. Renames all photos with correct timestamps

Input: 
rename_photos_by_date
Expected Output: 
Renamed: DSC_100.jpeg -> 2024-03-15_143100.jpeg
Renamed: IMG_001.jpg -> 2024-03-15_143022.jpg
Renamed: IMG_002.jpg -> 2024-03-15_143045.jpg

2. Output is sorted alphabetically by original filename

Input: 
rename_photos_by_date
puts '---'
Dir.glob('photos/*.{jpg,jpeg}').sort.each { |f| puts File.basename(f) }
Expected Output: 
Renamed: DSC_100.jpeg -> 2024-03-15_143100.jpeg
Renamed: IMG_001.jpg -> 2024-03-15_143022.jpg
Renamed: IMG_002.jpg -> 2024-03-15_143045.jpg
---
2024-03-15_143022.jpg
2024-03-15_143045.jpg
2024-03-15_143100.jpeg
+ 2 hidden test cases