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comp.lang.ruby

fugly hex

Giles Bowkett

7/6/2007 2:45:00 AM

Recently I got a hard drive back from a drive recovery place after it
had died a messy, violent, public death, like a Sopranos guest star.

I had to restore 65,536 directories.

Each directory contained some unknown (possibly zero) number of files.

The files were stored in directories with single-character names
running 0-f (hexadecimal).

My xargs fu was then too weak to handle this with a simple cp -r in
Unix. The argument list was too long. Additionally, the 65,536
directories did not yet exist in the new location.

The solution was pretty quick to implement:

hex = (0..9).to_a + %w{a b c d e f}

hex.each do |first|
system "mkdir /new/#{first}"
hex.each do |second|
system "mkdir /new/#{first}/#{second}"
hex.each do |third|
system "mkdir /new/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}"
hex.each do |fourth|
system "mkdir /new/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}/#{fourth}"
system "cp /original/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}/#{fourth}/*
/new/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}/#{fourth}/"
end
end
end
end

The hardest part was being satisfied with the implementation, and
resisting the urge to improve it. There's a great deal of repetition
there.

How can I make it prettier?

--
Giles Bowkett

Blog: http://gilesbowkett.bl...
Portfolio: http://www.gilesg...
4 Answers

Gregory Brown

7/6/2007 2:51:00 AM

0

On 7/5/07, Giles Bowkett <gilesb@gmail.com> wrote:
> Recently I got a hard drive back from a drive recovery place after it
> had died a messy, violent, public death, like a Sopranos guest star.
>
> I had to restore 65,536 directories.
>
> Each directory contained some unknown (possibly zero) number of files.
>
> The files were stored in directories with single-character names
> running 0-f (hexadecimal).
>
> My xargs fu was then too weak to handle this with a simple cp -r in
> Unix. The argument list was too long. Additionally, the 65,536
> directories did not yet exist in the new location.
>
> The solution was pretty quick to implement:
>
> hex = (0..9).to_a + %w{a b c d e f}
>
> hex.each do |first|
> system "mkdir /new/#{first}"
> hex.each do |second|
> system "mkdir /new/#{first}/#{second}"
> hex.each do |third|
> system "mkdir /new/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}"
> hex.each do |fourth|
> system "mkdir /new/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}/#{fourth}"
> system "cp /original/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}/#{fourth}/*
> /new/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}/#{fourth}/"
> end
> end
> end
> end
>
> The hardest part was being satisfied with the implementation, and
> resisting the urge to improve it. There's a great deal of repetition
> there.

use fileutils instead of system, and move first_second_third_forth
into a var. Then use mkdir_p instead of mkdir to avoid the first
three calls.

that's my 'quick glance' suggestion

Stefan Rusterholz

7/6/2007 3:08:00 AM

0

Sure
require 'fileutils' # as Gregory Brown already stated
65536.times { |x|
FileUtils.mkdir("new/%x/%x/%x/%x" % [x >> 12, x >> 8, x >> 4, x].map {
|x| x & 0xf })
}

Have fun
Stefan

Giles Bowkett wrote:
> Recently I got a hard drive back from a drive recovery place after it
> had died a messy, violent, public death, like a Sopranos guest star.
>
> I had to restore 65,536 directories.
>
> Each directory contained some unknown (possibly zero) number of files.
>
> The files were stored in directories with single-character names
> running 0-f (hexadecimal).
>
> My xargs fu was then too weak to handle this with a simple cp -r in
> Unix. The argument list was too long. Additionally, the 65,536
> directories did not yet exist in the new location.
>
> The solution was pretty quick to implement:
>
> hex = (0..9).to_a + %w{a b c d e f}
>
> hex.each do |first|
> system "mkdir /new/#{first}"
> hex.each do |second|
> system "mkdir /new/#{first}/#{second}"
> hex.each do |third|
> system "mkdir /new/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}"
> hex.each do |fourth|
> system "mkdir /new/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}/#{fourth}"
> system "cp /original/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}/#{fourth}/*
> /new/#{first}/#{second}/#{third}/#{fourth}/"
> end
> end
> end
> end
>
> The hardest part was being satisfied with the implementation, and
> resisting the urge to improve it. There's a great deal of repetition
> there.
>
> How can I make it prettier?
>


--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

Giles Bowkett

7/6/2007 5:00:00 PM

0

On 7/5/07, Stefan Rusterholz <apeiros@gmx.net> wrote:
> Sure
> require 'fileutils' # as Gregory Brown already stated
> 65536.times { |x|
> FileUtils.mkdir("new/%x/%x/%x/%x" % [x >> 12, x >> 8, x >> 4, x].map {
> |x| x & 0xf })
> }

Excellent. I tested it in irb as a one-liner:

65_536.times {|x| puts("new/%x/%x/%x/%x" % [x >> 12, x >> 8, x >> 4,
x].map {|x| x & 0xf })}

But how does that work? Is there a way to make it more readable for
the programmer with no understanding of bit-shifting? (That would be
me, specifically.) Is there a way to make bit-shifting simple and
obvious?

Also, there's a showstopping flaw. It starts with trying to do:

FileUtils.mkdir "0/0/0/0"

But this throws an error in either Unix or irb, because you have to
mkdir 0 before you put the next 0 in it, and so on four levels down.
That's why I went with the nested each statements.

In words, what you need to do is, every time you get past the f at the
top of hexadecimal's 0-f, add a new level, and when you get to 4
levels, start copying files.

Is there a way to do it recursively, with an awareness of the level of
recursion?

--
Giles Bowkett

Blog: http://gilesbowkett.bl...
Portfolio: http://www.gilesg...

Chris Carter

7/6/2007 5:15:00 PM

0

On 7/6/07, Giles Bowkett <gilesb@gmail.com> wrote:

> Also, there's a showstopping flaw. It starts with trying to do:
>
> FileUtils.mkdir "0/0/0/0"
>
> But this throws an error in either Unix or irb, because you have to
> mkdir 0 before you put the next 0 in it, and so on four levels down.
> That's why I went with the nested each statements.
>
>

FileUtils.mkdir_p "0/0/0/0" # should do the trick


--
Chris Carter
concentrationstudios.com
brynmawrcs.com