Strange behavior of files()

[Richard Gaskin]

Michael Kristensen wrote:

> I have a folder with 1347 jpg files
>
> they are sequently named
>
> xxxxxxxx 0001.JPG
> xxxxxxxx 0002.JPG
> xxxxxxxx 0003.JPG
> ...
> xxxxxxxx 1345.JPG
> xxxxxxxx 1346.JPG
> xxxxxxxx 1347.JPG
>
> Strangely the files() function return a list omitting the first two and the last two.
>
> Thus the list start with xxxxxxxx 0003.JPG and ends with xxxxxxxx 1345.JPG.
>
> Anyone seen this behavior?

I've seen what *looks* like that behavior, until I double-checked and 
discovered that file name listings returned from "the files" are not 
always sorted.

Instead, they return the values as known by the OS, which for some file 
systems often use inode order which may not reflect name sort order. 
Directories with large numbers of files may be especially prone to this, 
since the file lists are likely spread out across multiple inodes.

Try running the resulting list through the sort command to see if 
perhaps the files you're looking for are actually there but had not been 
where you'd expected them.

And an extra check might be to see if the number of lines in that list 
matches what you see in the OS file manager.

If you find they're not there please post back so we can find the recipe 
to pin down what at that point would be a bug.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
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