sort files by depth (bash)

Question

Is there a way in bash to sort my files from a directory down in depth order, for example first print the files in the present directory, then the files in the sub directory

Answer 1

The simplest solution:

$ echo * */* */*/* */*/*/* */*/*/*/* */*/*/*/*/*
a a/b a/b/c a/b/c/d1 a/b/c/d2 a/b/c/d1/e a/b/c/d2/e a/b/c/d1/e/f a/b/c/d2/e/f

Or, in column:

$ echo * */* */*/* */*/*/* */*/*/*/* */*/*/*/*/* |tr ' ' '\n'
a
a/b
a/b/c
a/b/c/d1
a/b/c/d2
a/b/c/d1/e
a/b/c/d2/e
a/b/c/d1/e/f
a/b/c/d2/e/f

The depth of the tree is hardcoded in the example, but you can write a small script and make it more flexible:

A="*"
while true
do
  B=$(echo $A)
  [ "$B" = "$A" ] && break
  echo $B
  A="$A/*"
done | tr ' ' '\n'

Example of usage:

$ A="*"; while true; do B=$(echo $A); [ "$B" = "$A" ] && break; echo $B; A="$A/*"; done | tr ' ' '\n'
a
a/b
a/b/c
a/b/c/d1
a/b/c/d2
a/b/c/d1/e
a/b/c/d2/e
a/b/c/d1/e/f
a/b/c/d2/e/f

Examples are provided for the tree:

$ mkdir -p a/b/c/d{1,2}/e/f
$ tree .
.
└── a
    └── b
        └── c
            ├── d1
            │   └── e
            │       └── f
            └── d2
                └── e
                    └── f

9 directories, 0 files

Find/depth solutions will obviously not work because find will shows subtrees one after another. The -depth key says in which direction subtree must be shown. But that doesn't mean, of course, that the output will be sorted by depth.

$ find .
.
./a
./a/b
./a/b/c
./a/b/c/d2
./a/b/c/d2/e
./a/b/c/d2/e/f
./a/b/c/d1
./a/b/c/d1/e
./a/b/c/d1/e/f

$ find . -depth
./a/b/c/d2/e/f
./a/b/c/d2/e
./a/b/c/d2
./a/b/c/d1/e/f
./a/b/c/d1/e
./a/b/c/d1
./a/b/c
./a/b
./a
.

As you can see the answer is incorrect in both cases (with and without -find).