open lots of files without using filenames

[farmerdoug]

I have a large number of directories with non-sequential numbers for names; Each directory contains a variable number of files - all of the same type. I need to open all the files - one at a time. Can I do this without specifying any of the names?

I guess I could make a list of all the directories; then use system calls to ls to get lists of the files in each directory; then read the files. Doesn't seem to terrible but I think microsoft C used to have routines that would do this for you.

[SilentPanda]

They may have obfuscated it for you, but under the covers all they were doing was a directory traversal. You'll need to do that if it's not already offered via the API.

[chown33]

Read the man page for the Standard C Library function opendir().

You may also have to read the header file <dirent.h> to learn the members of struct dirent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirent.h

[lee1210]

Or keep it simple and have your program work on a single file at a time, and pass this via command line with the results of find. If your program needs a whole directory or all the files to do its work, you could get the whole list of files and read in this "index" from stdin or a file. Saves you the directory structure traversal (which isn't *that* bad).

These may not be options here, but just keep in mind that there are many powerful tools you can leverage instead of poorly reinventing them.

Astronomy, stocks, or something new?

-Lee

[mrichmon]

Originally Posted by farmerdoug

I have a large number of directories with non-sequential numbers for names; Each directory contains a variable number of files - all of the same type. I need to open all the files - one at a time. Can I do this without specifying any of the names?

In python, the following would do it:

import os, glob

path = '/tmp/foo'

def process_file(file):
    print "processing file: " + file
    # Do stuff to file

def scan_dirs(path):
    for current in glob.glob( os.path.join(path, '*') ):
        if os.path.isdir(current):
            print 'processing directory: ' + current
            scan_dirs(current)
        else:
            process_file(current)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    scan_dirs(path)

[whooleytoo]

If I understand correctly, you just want to iterate through directories and perform some operation on each file?

If so (and you're using Cocoa), you could take a look at NSFileManager; either use the contentsOfDirectoryAtPath:error method, or else the enumeratorAtPath: method (though note that performs a deep iteration, into the sub directories).

[ytk]

Err... you didn't say what exactly you're trying to do, or even what language/environment you're trying to do it in. Is this a Bash script, a C program, or what? What do you mean by "open" them? You need to generate a file handle for each one to be read as a part of some script? Just open them in Finder? Display their contents? Are each of these directories full of files contained within a larger directory? If so, you can just use "*/*" to refer to each of the files.

If you explain what exactly it is you're trying to do, I'm sure somebody here can figure out how to help you with it.

[farmerdoug]

Thanks for the help guys. I didn't have response set on immediate so I did it like I said but will look into opendir. I didn't say that this was C so anything that wasn't was out but thanks all the same.