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Actual file order in a directory

I have a TV that will do a slide show of photos from a USB device. I have a directory of my recent vacation photos with a sub-directory for each location we visited. The photos are properly in order by file name in Dolphin, Digikam and Gwenview. When I copy this directory structure to a USB device and show it on the TV the photos are not in order by file name. I have done research and found that this is a common problem in many devices like TVs and mp3 players. The displayed order and the physical file order in a directory in Linux are not the same. I did find a script called findalpha that stated it would correct this issue by creating a temporary directory and copying files one-by-one, in file name order, and then back to the original directory so that the actual order and file name order match. It doesn't work on my Kubuntu 11.10. The jpg files are still not in file name order on the USB device. I can't seem to locate any other solution. Has anyone else solved this problem?

You may need the file names to start with a number. For example, my DVD player expects that for pictures and mp3 files; such as
01_dog.jpg
02_cat.jpg

The order given in a graphical file manager doesn't indicate any order in a directory. You can change how files are sorted, name, date, etc. Either by clicking on the column header, or by an option in the menu.

If the order the TV sees reflects the order they were copied, you could copy the files to the USB pendrive in the shell. The wild card, e.g. cp *.jpg /media/usbdrive/, will result in the jpeg files being sorted and copied in that order.

The idea of starting with a number did not work for me. However, the use of cp *.jpg /media/'stick name', appears to have worked. Now I need to develop a bash script that will do this recursively down the directory structure. Thanks for the tip.

I think the order is ls -f

Check out fatsort. It's probably already in your distro's repositories.

http://fatsort.sourceforge.net/

Also, if you would post the script you have, and whatever error messages/output you get, we may be able to figure out why it isn't working.

Finally, note that names are generally sorted in ascii string order (or the order of the locale your system is set to), rather than numerically. So 10 will usually come before 2. If this is a problem you may want to zero-pad the numbers first.

I've written a script that will automatically pad the numbers in filenames:

Code:



#!/bin/bash



# Pads numbers in file names if found.

# See help message for more.



# Set the environment

shopt -s extglob

IFS=""



BCYAN="${BCYAN:-\e[1;36m}"    #Define some color codes, for prettified output.

#BGREEN="${BGREEN:-\e[1;32m}"  #Uses environment defaults if they exist.

#BRED="${BRED:-\e[1;31m}"

#BBLUE="${BBLUE:-\e[1;34m}"

#BMAGENTA="${BMAGENTA:-\e[1;35m}"

RESET="${RESET:-\e[0m}"



#set the default padding level

pad=2



# Set up the help dialog:

help+=( '' )

help+=( '\tA quick script to zero-pad files that contain numbers.' )

help+=( '\tIt will only pad the first number string it finds in the name, and ignores files without numbers in their names.' )

help+=( '' )

help+=( "\tUsage: \t${BCYAN}${0##*/} [-n <num>] <files>${RESET}" )

help+=( "\t\t${BCYAN}${0##*/} -h${RESET}" )

help+=( '' )

help+=( '\tUse -n to specify the number of digits to pad, from 1-9.  Defaults to '"$pad"' if not used.' )

help+=( '\tIf no files are given, it processes the current directory.' )

help+=( '' )





# Process input options

# If "-h" print help & exit.

# If "-n" test for valid inputs and set "pad" variable

# Ignore anything else

while getopts ":hn:" opt; do



        case "$opt" in



                h)        IFS=$'\n'

                echo -e "${help[*]}" >&2

                exit "2"

                ;;



                n)        if [[ "$OPTARG" =~ [^[:digit:]] ]] || (( "10#$OPTARG" < 1 )) || (( "10#$OPTARG" > 9 )); then

                                echo

                                echo -e "${BCYAN}invalid option: [$OPTARG].${RESET}" >&2

                                echo -e "${BCYAN}-n must be an integer from 1 to 9${RESET}" >&2

                                echo -e "${BCYAN}Falling back to the default of $pad${RESET}"

                                echo

                        else

                                pad="$(( 10#$OPTARG ))"

                        fi

                ;;



                \?) echo -e "${BCYAN}Invalid option: [-$OPTARG].  Ignoring.${RESET}" >&2

                ;;

        esac

done



shift $(( OPTIND - 1 )) ; OPTIND=1



# Now test for input files.

# If nothing given, set input parameters to files in current directory.

if [[ -z "$*" ]]; then

        set -- ./*

fi



# Process files in input parameters

for file in "$@" ; do



        # Ignore files without digits

        [[ "$file" != *[0-9]* ]] && continue



        # Split filename into prefix-digits-suffix

        [[ "$file" =~ ([^[0-9]*)([0-9]+)(.*) ]]



        # Pad digits to desired width

        printf -v numpad "%0*d" "$pad" "${BASH_REMATCH[2]##*(0)}"



        # Add old and new filenames to arrays for final processing

        oldfile+=( "$file" )

        newfile+=( "${BASH_REMATCH[1]}${numpad}${BASH_REMATCH[3]}" )



done



# If there are any files to rename, ask to confirm the operation.

# And rename if confirmed.

if [[ -n "${oldfile[*]}" ]]; then



        echo

        echo -e "${BCYAN}Rename the following files?${RESET}"        

        echo

        for i in "${!oldfile[@]}" ; do

                echo -e "${oldfile[i]/#$PWD/.}\t-->\t${newfile[i]/#$PWD/.}"

        done

        echo

        read -p "(y/n): "

        echo



        case "$REPLY" in



                y|Y*)          for i in "${!oldfile[@]}" ; do

                                        mv -n "${oldfile[i]}" "${newfile[i]}"

                                done

                                echo

                ;;



                *)                echo -e "${BCYAN}Aborting.${RESET}"

                                echo

                                exit 1

                ;;

        esac



# Otherwise just exit.

else

        echo

        echo -e "${BCYAN}No files to rename.${RESET}" >&2

        echo -e "${BCYAN}Exiting.${RESET}" >&2

        echo

        exit 1

fi



exit 0

I will try the fatsort idea. I assumed that fatsort was a windows thing when I saw it. I didn't read deep enough. The rename feature of Gwenview and Digikam does a good job of providing zero-filled, incremental, numbered names as well.