Question

I’m trying to get sorted directory/file list with unix “find” command.

# find . -type f 
.
./bin
./data
./data/disks
./inc
./inc/calls
./inc/calls/show
./inc/calls/show/system
./inc/calls/show/cli
./inc/calls/show/network
./inc/calls/show/stats
./inc/calls/services
./inc/calls/services/ntp
./inc/calls/services/tsa
./inc/calls/services/webgui
./inc/calls/services/engine
./inc/calls/system
./inc/calls/change
./inc/calls/change/password
./inc/calls/change/network
./inc/calls/disk
./inc/calls/disk/encr
./inc/etc

I want to sort it like:

./inc/calls/show/system \    
./inc/calls/show/cli \
./inc/calls/show/network \
./inc/calls/show/stats \
./inc/calls/services/ntp \
./inc/calls/services/tsa \
./inc/calls/services/webgui \
./inc/calls/services/engine \
./inc/calls/change/password \
./inc/calls/change/network \
./inc/calls/disk/encr \
./inc/calls/system \
./inc/calls/change \
./inc/calls/services \
./inc/calls/disk \
./inc/calls/show \
./inc/calls \
./data/disks \
./inc/etc \
./bin \
./data \
./inc

Which node (directory/file) has more child (directory/files) should be first… i want to do it with bash or python… What is the best way to do that?

Answer 1

Match lines containing / and prepend the number of fields to the line using / as the separator, sort on the numbers of fields and remove the count.

$ awk -F/ '/\//{print NF,$0}' file | sort -nrk1 | cut -d' ' -f2-
./inc/calls/show/system
./inc/calls/show/stats
./inc/calls/show/network
./inc/calls/show/cli
./inc/calls/services/webgui
./inc/calls/services/tsa
./inc/calls/services/ntp
./inc/calls/services/engine
./inc/calls/disk/encr
./inc/calls/change/password
./inc/calls/change/network
./inc/calls/system
./inc/calls/show
./inc/calls/services
./inc/calls/disk
./inc/calls/change
./inc/etc
./inc/calls
./data/disks
./inc
./data
./bin