Sorting directory contents

[Wolfgang Draxinger]

Jussi Salmela wrote:

> I'm not claiming the following to be more elegant, but I would
> do it like this (not tested!):
> 
> src_file_paths = dict()
> prefix = sourcedir + os.sep
> for fname in os.listdir(sourcedir):
>      if match_fname_pattern(fname):
>          fpath = prefix + fname
>          src_file_paths[os.stat(fpath).st_mtime] = fpath
> for ftime in src_file_paths.keys().sort():
>          read_and_concatenate(src_file_paths[ftime])

Well, both versions, mine and yours won't work as it was written
down, as they neglegt the fact, that different files can have
the same st_mtime and that <listtype>.sort() doesn't return a
sorted list.

However this code works (tested) and behaves just like listdir,
only that it sorts files chronologically, then alphabetically.

def listdir_chrono(dirpath):
        import os
        files_dict = dict()
        for fname in os.listdir(dirpath):
                mtime = os.stat(dirpath+os.sep+fname).st_mtime
                if not mtime in files_dict:
                        files_dict[mtime] = list()
                files_dict[mtime].append(fname)
        
        mtimes = files_dict.keys()
        mtimes.sort()
        filenames = list()
        for mtime in mtimes:
                fnames = files_dict[mtime]
                fnames.sort()
                for fname in fnames:
                        filenames.append(fname)
        return filenames

Wolfgang Draxinger
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