Sorting directory contents

[Wolfgang Draxinger]

Larry Bates wrote:

> 3) You didn't handle the possibility that there is s
> subdirectory
>    in the current directory.  You need to check to make sure it
>    is a file you are processing as os.listdir() returns files
>    AND directories.

Well, the directory the files are in is not supposed to have any
subdirectories.

> 4) If you just put a tuple containing (mtime, filename) in a
> list
>    each time through the loop you can just sort that list at
>    the end it will be sorted by mtime and then alphabetically.

Ah, of course. Hmm, seems I was short of caffeine when I hacked
my code :-P

> def listdir_chrono(dirpath):
>     import os
>     #
>     # Get a list of full pathnames for all the files in dirpath
>     # and exclude all the subdirectories.  Note: This might be
>     # able to be replaced by glob.glob() to simplify.  I would
>     # then add a second optional parameter: mask="" that would
>     # allow me to pass in a mask.
>     #
>     # List comprehensions are our friend when we are processing
>     # lists of things.
>     #
>     files=[os.path.join(dirpath, x) for x in
>     os.listdir(dirpath)
>            if not os.path.isdir(os.path.join(dirpath, x)]
> 
>     #
>     # Get a list of tuples that contain (mtime, filename) that
>     # I can sort.
>     #
>     flist=[(os.stat(x).st_mtime, x) for x in files]
> 
>     #
>     # Sort them.  Sort will sort on mtime, then on filename
>     #
>     flist.sort()
>     #
>     # Extract a list of the filenames only and return it
>     #
>     return [x[1] for x in flist]
>     #
>     # or if you only want the basenames of the files
>     #
>     #return [os.path.basename(x[1]) for x in flist]

Now, THAT is elegant.

Wolfgang Draxinger
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