# Find.find sorting: files before directories

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [March 20, 2008, 4:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481 "2008-03-20T16:52:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adambeazley)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 4:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481/1 "2008-03-20T16:52:01Z")

</div>

I’m looking for a simple way to use Find.find to produce a list of  
files/directories for NSIS. Ideally the list will sort files before  
directories so as to minimize the number of times SetOutPath is used  
(an NSIS function).

The script so far is as follows:  
-----------snip-----------------------  
dirs = [“jruby-1.0.3”]  
excludes = []  
for dir in dirs  
folder = ‘’  
Find.find(dir) do |path|  
if FileTest.directory?(path)  
if excludes.include?(File.basename(path))  
Find.prune # Don’t look any further into this directory.  
else  
next  
end  
else  
if folder != File.dirname(path)  
folder = File.dirname(path)  
puts ‘SetOutPath "’ + folder + ‘"’  
end  
puts ‘File "’ + path + ‘"’  
end  
end  
end

-----------------------end snip-------------------

Simple directory traversal, no problem there. The issue is that  
Find.find doesn’t allow any sort of ordering to be specified; namely  
that directories are mixed in with files. The script produces the  
following output:

---------------output---------------------------------  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/README.rails”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/README.coverage”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/Readline-HOWTO.txt”  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs/rbyaml”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/rbyaml/README”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/rbyaml/LICENSE”  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENSE.bouncycastle”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENSE.ant”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENCE.bsf”  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/README”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/LICENSE”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/CREDITS”  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/Glossary.txt”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/getting\_involved.html”  
-----------------------end output-------------------------

The desired output would sort sub-folders before files when traversing  
a given directory, thus eliminating the duplicate entries for  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs” as seen above.

------------desired output--------------------------------  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/README.rails”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/README.coverage”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/Readline-HOWTO.txt”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENSE.bouncycastle”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENSE.ant”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENCE.bsf”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/Glossary.txt”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/getting\_involved.html”  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs/rbyaml”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/rbyaml/README”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/rbyaml/LICENSE”  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/README”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/LICENSE”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/CREDITS”  
------------------------------end output--------------------------

Any ideas?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adambeazley)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2008, 5:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481/2 "2008-03-20T17:00:52Z")

</div>

I forgot to include the require:  
------------snip---------------------  
require ‘find’ # oops!  
dirs = [“jruby-1.0.3”]  
excludes = []  
for dir in dirs  
folder = ‘’  
Find.find(dir) do |path|  
if FileTest.directory?(path)  
if excludes.include?(File.basename(path))  
Find.prune # Don’t look any further into this directory.  
else  
next  
end  
else  
if folder != File.dirname(path)  
folder = File.dirname(path)  
puts ‘SetOutPath "’ + folder + ‘"’  
end  
puts ‘File "’ + path + ‘"’  
end  
end  
end  
-----------------------end snip-------------------

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adambeazley)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 9:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481/3 "2008-03-21T09:50:51Z")

</div>

On 20.03.2008 16:46, Adam B. wrote:

> folder = ‘’  
> puts ‘SetOutPath "’ + folder + ‘"’  
> that directories are mixed in with files. The script produces the  
> SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs”  
> -----------------------end output-------------------------  
> File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENSE.bouncycastle”  
> File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/CREDITS”  
> ------------------------------end output--------------------------
> 
> Any ideas?

IIRC Find.find does sort sub folders before files. To me your code  
seems pretty complex and I believe the major problem is that you check  
the same directory over and over again for exclusion because you use  
File.basename. Can’t you just do this?

Find.find base do |path|  
if File.directory? path  
if excludes.include? path  
Find.prune  
else  
puts “SetOutPath #{path}”  
end  
else  
puts “File #{path}”  
end  
end

Kind regards

robert

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adambeazley)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 9:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481/4 "2008-03-24T21:10:48Z")

</div>

On 24.03.2008 19:27, Adam B. wrote:

> I mixed up sub-folders and files. I meant to say that I want to sort  
> files before sub-folders (so that the folder that a file resides in  
> comes right before the file in the list).

Why do you need that? I mean, if a folder is excluded then you want to  
exclude all files and subfolders, don’t you?

> --------------end output-------  
> I have no idea what’s wrong there. Did you try with the Ruby  
> interpreter (instead of JRuby)?

robert

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adambeazley)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 7:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481/5 "2008-03-24T19:30:53Z")

</div>

I mixed up sub-folders and files. I meant to say that I want to sort  
files before sub-folders (so that the folder that a file resides in  
comes right before the file in the list).

I tried the posted code, but I couldn’t get it to run. Some String  
comparison problem.  
---------output---------------  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3  
SetOutPath Djruby-1.0.3/…  
C:/ruby/jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/1.8/find.rb:45:in `find': comparison of String with String failed (ArgumentError) from :1:in`catch’  
from C:/ruby/jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/1.8/find.rb:38:in `find’  
from :1  
--------------end output-------

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adambeazley)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 10:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481/6 "2008-03-24T22:01:38Z")

</div>

> Why do you need that? I mean, if a folder is excluded then you want to  
> exclude all files and subfolders, don’t you?

Yes, an excluded folder would also exclude its children files and  
folders.

I’m thinking that I haven’t exactly made it clear what my goal is…

Using Find.find, I want to traverse through a directory structure and  
make an NSIS-style list of files and their paths for use in an NSIS  
installer script. A list of this sort would be best organized if a  
directory’s file children are listed before the directory children.

Example:  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/README.rails”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/README.coverage”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/Readline-HOWTO.txt”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENSE.bouncycastle”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENSE.ant”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENCE.bsf”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/Glossary.txt”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/getting\_involved.html”  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs/rbyaml”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/rbyaml/README”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/rbyaml/LICENSE”  
SetOutPath “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/README”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/LICENSE”  
File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/CREDITS”  
…

The “SetOutPath” lines are the directories, the “File” lines are the  
files.

The code you gave will gave results like this (once I used Ruby  
instead of JRuby :)…):  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3/samples  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/xslt.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/thread.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/swing2.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/scripting.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/javascript.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/java2.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/error.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/dom-applet.html  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/applet.html  
File jruby-1.0.3/README  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3/lib  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/ubygems.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/securerandom.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems.rb  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/version.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/validator.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/  
user\_interaction.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/timer.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/  
specification.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/  
source\_info\_cache\_entry.rb  
…

The issue is that it is very important that the SetOutPath call for  
any particular file comes directly before it in the list (ie,  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3 for the line File jruby-1.0.3/README). That  
way the output path is set correctly when the file is extracted from  
the installer executable.

The selected lines from the previous example would ideally be listed  
this way:  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3  
File jruby-1.0.3/README  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3/samples  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/xslt.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/thread.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/swing2.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/scripting.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/javascript.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/java2.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/error.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/dom-applet.html  
File jruby-1.0.3/samples/applet.html  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/ubygems.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/securerandom.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems.rb  
SetOutPath jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/version.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/validator.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/  
user\_interaction.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/timer.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/  
specification.rb  
File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/  
source\_info\_cache\_entry.rb  
…

It’s beginning to seem to me that Find.find just doesn’t have an easy  
way of sorting the elements being traversed. Any additional help is  
greatly appreciated.

---

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**Author:** ![adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adambeazley)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2008, 9:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481/7 "2008-03-25T09:20:59Z")

</div>

2008/3/24, Adam B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid):

> make an NSIS-style list of files and their paths for use in an NSIS  
> File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/LICENSE.ant”  
> File “jruby-1.0.3/docs/jvyaml/LICENSE”
> 
> File jruby-1.0.3/samples/dom-applet.html  
> File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/version.rb
> 
> File jruby-1.0.3/samples/applet.html  
> File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/  
> specification.rb  
> File jruby-1.0.3/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/  
> source\_info\_cache\_entry.rb  
> …
> 
> It’s beginning to seem to me that Find.find just doesn’t have an easy  
> way of sorting the elements being traversed. Any additional help is  
> greatly appreciated.

Thanks for clarifying. You could do something like this:

require ‘find’

base=‘.’  
excludes = []  
dirs = Hash.new {|h,p| h[p]=[]}

Find.find base do |path|  
if File.directory? path  
Find.prune if excludes.include? path  
else  
dirs[File.dirname(path)] \<\< path  
end  
end

dirs.sort.each do |dir,files|  
puts “SetOutPath #{dir}”  
files.each {|f| puts “File #{f}”}  
end

If you want to do printing while traversing then the code becomes more  
complicated (either using Find or manual traversal via Dir[]).

Kind regards

robert

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adambeazley)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2008, 4:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481/8 "2008-03-25T16:16:23Z")

</div>

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for your time and  
effort!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@adambeazley](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/adambeazley)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2008, 3:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/find-find-sorting-files-before-directories/132481/9 "2008-03-25T03:12:59Z")

</div>

Adam B. wrote:

> The desired output would sort sub-folders before files when traversing  
> If output is the only requirement for sort order, why not just have two  
> arrays, one for files and one for directories? You can then .sort.uniq  
> the directory listing and the files separately and output them at the  
> end of the traversal.

Mac