[NTLUG:Discuss] True order of files in a directory.

[Tom McDonald]

Robert Thompson wrote:

>Since everything in *nix is 'just a file', the directory file is what
>has the "true" order to the files. If I have a directory /music/, then
>the files that are under that directory are stored in the file /music.
>Obviously /music is a special type of file (called a directory oddly
>enough) that contains a list of other files under it. If I remember
>correctly, the default order is creation time. I guess it just appends
>the new file name to the end of the list. Other tools such as ls sort
>the order into something that is more friendly.
>
>Now since it's a special file, I have no clue on how to edit it the
>correct way. It may be a bad idea since I don't know what happens if you
>loose the mapping to where the file is. I'm not sure how the system
>would pick it back up or if it would be a 'zombie' file. What I would
>try as a test (insert all my disclaimers here :) ) is create a hard link
>to a test directory, so there are two links to the directory (the
>original file and the hard link). Then maybe create another hard link to
>each test file in the directory. Then edit one of the two directory
>files. Hopefully, if things get messed up, you still have a mapping to
>the directory contents through the other directory file.
>
>Robert Thompson
>
>
>On Thu, 2005-08-25 at 21:45 -0700, Steve Baker wrote:
>  
>
>>Here's a puzzler.
>>
>>My son has an el-cheapo USB MP3 player - it uses USB filing system
>>for storing music tracks.  It allows you to put files into
>>directories - so you can put tracks into albums and albums into
>>collections by artist - and artists into collections by genre.
>>
>>This all works.
>>
>>However, he was puzzled that when he does an 'ls' of the gizmo
>>from his Linux box, the order of the albums and tracks is
>>alphabetical - but the order they appear to be when viewed on
>>the MP3 player itself seems random.
>>
>>Well - we all know that 'ls' (and most other Linux tools) sort
>>file listings into alphabetical order.
>>
>>The MP3 player evidently does not.  I can see the 'true' order
>>of the files from Linux using 'ls -f' (which turns off sorting)
>>and when I do that, Linux sees the same random ordering that
>>the MP3 player does...so this is a good theory.
>>
>>So - the question is, how can my kid get the albums (and more
>>importantly, the tracks within the albums) into the right order
>>on the MP3 player?
>>
>>The obvious way is to wipe the USB drive clean and copy the files
>>onto the player in the order they should be played in.
>>
>>But this is a major pain to do because if you delete one song,
>>the player will put the next song you create into that slot in
>>the directory - resulting in horribly misplaced files.
>>
>>What we *really* need is a tool to rearrange the order of files
>>*physically* in the directory of the USB drive.
>>
>>Does anyone have any insights into how to do this nicely?
>>
>>---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
>>HomeEmail: <sjbaker1 at airmail.net>    WorkEmail: <sjbaker at link.com>
>>HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
>>Projects : http://plib.sf.net    http://tuxaqfh.sf.net
>>            http://tuxkart.sf.net http://prettypoly.sf.net
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>>
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>>    
>>
>
>
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>  
>
If the order is based on the creation time, couldn't you just modify the
ctime to change the order? 

If it's a FAT file system you might be able to change it with touch, if
it's ext2 then you would probably have to write a program to change it.

-- 

Tom McDonald <mickeyd at compuclaim.com>


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