a python script to stitch together uncopyable ncurses buffer dumps

stitch.py

#This was made for stitching uncopyable ncurses buffers textdumped to files
#Expects correct ordering of input, i.e.: pane1, pane2, pane3, etc.
#Accepts UTF-8 plain text files  There is no restriction on file extension, but 
# dumpfile names must regex match by 'pane\d+'
#If a proceeding pane contains completely new content it will be appended in full and in order, 
# ortherwise it will append only non-overlapping tail of the next pane, effectively deduplicating overlaps.
#!/usr/bin/env python3

import os
import re
import sys

def load_dumps(dir_path):
    files = sorted(
        [f for f in os.listdir(dir_path) if re.match(r'pane\d+', f)],
        key=lambda x: int(re.search(r'\d+', x).group())
    )
    return [open(os.path.join(dir_path, f), encoding='utf-8').read() for f in files]

def smart_overlap(a_lines, b_lines, min_match=3):
    best = (0, 0)  # (match_len, b_start_index)

    for b_start in range(len(b_lines)):
        match_len = 0
        a_index = max(0, len(a_lines) - (len(b_lines) - b_start))

        while (a_index + match_len < len(a_lines) and
               b_start + match_len < len(b_lines) and
               a_lines[a_index + match_len] == b_lines[b_start + match_len]):
            match_len += 1

        # Ensure we're not matching all of b_lines (only overlap with continuation)
        if match_len >= min_match and b_start + match_len < len(b_lines):
            if match_len > best[0]:
                best = (match_len, b_start)

    # Return index to start appending from
    return best[1] + best[0] if best[0] > 0 else 0

def smart_stitch(dumps):
    lines = dumps[0].splitlines()
    for dump in dumps[1:]:
        new_lines = dump.splitlines()
        cutoff = smart_overlap(lines, new_lines)
        lines += new_lines[cutoff:]
    return '\n'.join(lines) + '\n'

def main():
    if len(sys.argv) != 2:
        print("Usage: stitch.py /path/to/dumps")
        sys.exit(1)

    dir_path = sys.argv[1]
    dumps = load_dumps(dir_path)
    stitched = smart_stitch(dumps)
    print(stitched)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()