walking a directory with very many files

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <20090618081423.2e0356b9 at coercion>, Mike Kazantsev wrote:

> On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:33:49 +1200
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo at geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
> 
>> In message <20090617214535.108667ca at coercion>, Mike Kazantsev wrote:
>> 
>>> On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:04:37 +1200
>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo at geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> In message <20090617142431.2b25faf5 at malediction>, Mike Kazantsev
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:53:33 +1200
>>>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo at geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Why not use hex representation of md5/sha1-hashed id as a path,
>>>>>>> arranging them like /path/f/9/e/95ea4926a4 ?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> That way, you won't have to deal with many-files-in-path problem
>>>>>>> ...
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Why is that a problem?
>>>>> 
>>>>> So you can os.listdir them?
>>>> 
>>>> Why should you have a problem os.listdir'ing lots of files?
>>> 
>>> I shouldn't, and I don't ;)
>> 
>> Then why did you suggest that there was a problem being able to
>> os.listdir them?
> 
> I didn't, OP did ...

Then why did you reply to my question "Why is that a problem?" with "So that 
you can os.listdir them?", if you didn't think there was a problem (see 
above)?