I have been doing some housekeeping - archiving video and audio files to DVD. As I will never be able to remember what is on what DVD I am creating a catalog of files - a text file which I can search and find which DVD contains a certain video for example. I have been doing this for years using Windoze and the dir command. Even after using Linux for many years I would mount the DVDs from a Win XP virtual machine to read the file list and concatenate it to my list. I finally decided it is time to do this from Linux directly. Here is an example of what I am afterThis was obviously done by the dir command from a sample file/directory structure. In Linux I would like something like I have been doing some research and experimenting with the ls command such as

ls -r -1
ls -r -1 /**/*

I am able to display the files and full path at but not at all levels. For exampleI must be missing something - probably something simple. I hate to have to run dir under Wine in order to list the files on my DVDs

TIA,

Ken

Hey there Have you ever tried "tree" command in Linux? It has more simple syntax than ls itself and will output each level of a directory.
Give it a try.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks fuorviato!

I had used the tree command in Windoze. I had not tried it in Linux. Seems it is not there by default. I have installed the package and played with it a little. It produces a fancier output than I had used previosly. I will substitute it in my DVD cataloging script and see how it works out.

Thanks again,

Ken

OK. Feel free to write in case of problems, so maybe we can help around

"tree" works very well
i use it all the time
the basic just typing
is all i need 99% of the time
have a look at the help page

That's the power of Linux
Ah. If the trick works for you, mark the thread as "solved" pls.

Again my sincere thanks fuorviato,

I incorporated tree into my directory reading script thusIt produces nice results for exampleI could do without the /dvd line and the 3 directories, 14 files line but I can live with that (or delete it manually before I paste the results of a batch of DVDs into the master catalog file.) Or I might get creative and figure out how to strip out those lines. I think head and tail might come into play but I will have to do a little reading first.

You have provided me with the answer to my original question and I will mark this thread as solved!

Thanks once more,

Ken

p.s. The way I use this script is as follows:

1 - insert a DVD
2 - allow the DVD to auto mount
3 - run the script (as root because of mount/umount)
4 - pick up the ejected DVD and repeat - all rather efficient

I think I can improve it by parsing the label of the DVD to a variable and substituting it into the tree command. That would eliminate the redundant mount and allow me to run the script as a normal user. That is on my todo list.

My new and improved script - even simplerwhich results inKen

What about justIt would be more useful for scripting (if you wanted that) that the "formatted list" from tree.

edit: probably not what you want, but it also answers the OP for future searchers who may.

Thanks descendant_command,

I have played with find a bit. I appreciate your adding to the thread for completeness and future reference.

Ken