Breaking up a directory with many files.

[Phlod]

Hello,

I currently have about 15 directories, each with about 33,000 files in it. I want to make a script that I can run in each directory which will sort the files by ascending date (meaning starting with the oldest files and working to the newest), create a directory such as '001/' and move the oldest 3000 files there, then make another directory, and repeat until all files are moved.

I've looked everywhere I can think of for pointers, but I haven't found anything that I can wrap my head around that works. Please help, and thank you all in advance.

--Phlod

[Chris_C]

making directories and moving files about isnt the hard part

ordering by date is very dependent on which language you want to use.

if c++ I'd probably use the STL to sort a <list> of filenames and dates

I often have a shell of code that executes shell commands while working up a prototype.
system - C++ Reference


I almost sure that some bash scripting wizard could do something arcane with half a dozen lines of script and a few choice regular expression spells...

[HROAdmin26]

First stop:

man ls

Outline:

1. Sort files by time (Output could go into a *large* array, or something simple like a text file.)
2. Create a for/while loop that moves ~3000 files, then creates a new dir, and moves 3000 more, etc.
3. Repeat #2 until done - then (if used), delete the text file.

Without writing the specifics:

ls -altr > file_list.txt

There's the file list by modified time - oldest at the top.

Use the last column to feed into a loop mv command. Once 3000 are moved, check that the there are still files, create a new dir, and then go back into the mv loop.

[Phlod]

Final code, in case anyone else ever needs. It's quick and dirty.

#!/usr/bin/perl

@files=`ls -tr`;
chomp (@files);

for($loop_count = 0; $loop_count < 11; $loop_count++) {
system "mkdir $loop_count";
for($count = 0; $count <= 3000; $count ++) {
$curfile = shift (@files);
$command = "mv " . $curfile ." " . $loop_count;
system $command;
}
}