[BUG] Files with the same name overwrite each other in sync

[Yquas]

Which app is your issue for

Document Scanner

Version

v1.19.1 Build 140

What platform are you using?

Android

OS Version

Android 16

What happened?

When you create several documents the same day and they receive the same file name by your name template (= today's date), only the latest file gets exported with "Sync document PDFs" enabled or it overwrites the others.

So files should not be allowed to have the same name right in the app and get a number appended to their title when there's already file with the same name, and this check should also be what happens when the app tries to export to the selected folder, it shouldn't overwrite anything but automatically adjust the name. And when there's already today.pdf and today01.pdf, the next file has to be renamed to today02.pdf and so on.

Relevant log output

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[farfromrefug]

@Yquas not sure i understand, the name of the document contains the date but also the time. From my tests this should never happen. Did you change the filename date format in the sync settings? The default is timestamp which contains ms so should never happen

[Yquas]

@farfromrefug Oh sorry, yes I changed it to only today's date because I don't like the long number string with seconds and all that. It won't happen on default settings, you're right.
But if you offer the ability to change the string, the app should be able to handle not overwriting when files are named the same. You could ignore it in the app UI itself, but I think the renaming I suggested that prevents overwriting would be a good practise.

[Yquas]

@farfromrefug Hey, I tested something and found that your app already does the thing I requested when manually exporting a PDF: When there's already a file with the same name in the selected directory, the exported file gets a sequential number appended before the ".pdf". Couldn't you add the same thing for the folders that are selected for syncing? That would solve my (non default usecase, I know) problem.

[farfromrefug]

@Yquas i agree i need to fix it for whatever the file format. At least now we know why

[farfromrefug]

@Yquas it is actually a bit trickier that what i thought.
We actually want sync PDF to "overwrite" existing file. The idea is that if you sync the document twice it should not create 2 PDFs in the sync folder but instead only one and should always be the latest version,
And i cant add an "index" based on the document we are syncing because that index might change based on the documents you are syncing.
There is no simple solution there except that the naming/format must be unique. So if you use dates then you need up to sec in the file naming format i guess

[Yquas]

@farfromrefug Yeah you're right for the sync PDF setting, it doesn't make much sense / is quite overkill to check in the folder where the sync is always happening.

But what about only allowing unique document names in the app itself? Then there's no files in a folder to check for, just the list of created documents.
And then, when a user renames a document to an already existing name, or if the naming template would produce the exact same name of another document, the app automatically adds a (1/2/...) at the end. Or is it also too much for a not that important functionality?

[farfromrefug]

@Yquas yes preventing duplicate naming is possible and not a bad idea. However it wont resolve your issue about overwriting files when you change export naming to remove "time". In that case we can still end up with "duplicate" naming and overwriting ones. This is something i cant really prevent easily

[Yquas]

@farfromrefug It will in my case, I've set the date format to date only everywhere (naming template, export, sync). Also, I've set the app to keep the original document names if possible (also everywhere). I want exported and synced documents to have the exact same name so I can identify them later, and these settings enable just that.

So if you then introduced the duplicate naming prevention right there in the app's UI, I'd imagine it like this (taking into account that I removed the timestamp for naming new documents):

• 1st document of the day: today
• 2nd: today (1)
• 3rd: today (2)
• ...
• any document that's renamed to a name that is already taken by another for whatever reason: date/name (1)

And then, there would already be only unique document names in the app, so there wouldn't be any problems in the sync folder. Do you understand?

There's no need for more "what if user did/set ..." checks when you offer so many settings, solving duplicates inside the app would do it.