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How to deduplicate sentences in large .odt and .txt files? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago by zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml

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Over the years, I've downloaded a lot of old emails to my laptop, which I saved as .eml files and then converted to .docx, .odt, and .txt files (mostly the last two).

The unfortunate habit of almost everyone (including myself, but no longer!) of quoting the original message as part of an email exchange has left me with text file(s) full of repeated sentences and paragraphs. What I've tended to do is to dump all the text from a one on one correspondence into a single file ("Dad-Erinaceus Complete Correspondence.odt," for example) and then try cleaning it up and re-ordering the messages by date.

Apart from the emails, I have I guess what you'd call a "journal" which is a very long .odt file that runs to about 300 pages or so. Much of this has the same sentences and paragraphs over and over again, but sometimes with slight variations that I would like to keep. So far, in either .odt or .txt files, I've started by searching for the first sentence, deleting subsequent appearances of it, and then going on to the next sentence, and so forth. Very time consuming! Is there a faster (and safe) way to do this?

There is quite possibly a very simple solution to this that I haven't thought of, but I'd be much obliged for any suggestions.

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[–] zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Text, as far as I know (?) doesn't take up that much space memory-wise, but on the other hand can you imagine the amount of server space that gets taken up by redundant text from people's emails (just for starters)?

Some of my approaches to the apparently much-hated "Inbox Zero" are to be diligent about emptying the trash, not keeping copies of emails in my sent folder, and most importantly, to download messages, personal or professional ones (mostly the former) that I find personally valuable, and then delete the original email so it isn't floating around forever in cyberspace. This leaves me with lots of txt files, which, as I said above, I then merge all together into one file and then edit. You'd think that there'd be a tool that cleans up the contents of email messages; there do appear to be some online ones, but I don't trust them. While researching this problem, I found out about "(g)awk" and am now fiddling around with it to see if I can successfully clean up my files without completely messing them up, as in

awk '!seen[$0]++' input.txt > output.txt

making sure that I experiment on a duplicated file and not on the original. I barely know what I'm doing here, but I'll see what I can come up with . . .

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Inbox zero doesn't mean deleting all your emails lol. It just means getting them out of your inbox. I do this myself. For each email in my inbox I "do something" with it instead of just leaving it there. Put it in a folder, tag it, spam, delete, archive, anything. Personally I use 3 zones:

inbox: currently to-do. Things I need to reply to or action I "flag" so they're at the top. Everything else is moved either to
archive: things I might need in the future. Any important correspondence. Bills. Etc. The important part is it is "out of sight". I use labels to tag everything, I find this is easier to search and navigate. Plus if you put a label on the email, you know why you kept it, it forces you to quantify that reason.
trash. Auto deleted after 30 days in case I change my mind and actually need it. Most emails go to trash. Aggressively unsubscribe from newsletters.

[–] zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml 1 points 22 hours ago

🙂👍