Re: semi OT: sort dir

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Myron Gochnauer wrote:

> Does anyone know of a utility that will literally sort a long-filename
> directory, so that the on-disk directory is in the sorted order?
>
> I've noticed (I think) that when Win2K copies files to another drive it
> doesn't always do this in the order that they appear in Windows Explorer.
> [Am I wrong about this?] I have a device with a hard disk in it that does
> not offer any way of sorting files before using them, so I want to be able
> to ensure that files are written to it in a specific order.

Explorer is not what I would call a decent file manager. A good file manager,
like ZTree, will allow you to *display* a directory's files sorted by various
user-selectable criteria . . . thought I don't think it can physically
rearrange
them on the H/D according to said criteria. However, once so displayed, I
believe that a mass-copy operation will take these files to their target in the
order you see them onscreen. (I'd have to do a test run to be sure about that.)

The problem with ZTree is that it shows long filenames running off of the
file window, such as "FILENAME|>.EXT" (that's supposed to be a right-
facing delta), and in order to see the full long filename, you have to resort to

a faux Rename operation on the highlighted file, and then abort it. I guess
that's the nature of a non-GUI app. Anyway, there are other good file managers
around. There is another whose name escapes me just now -- something like
POWERDIR ? -- which came free as a premium with the purchase of some
other program. If I dig around, I should be able to find it.

Jordan