Linux: create random directory/file hierarchy

Question

For testing a tool I need a directory with a whole bunch of different Office files in a deep nested structure. I already have the files in a directory, but now need to creat

Answer 1

This is a script that generate a random dir structure :

#!/bin/bash

# Decimal ASCII codes (see man ascii)
ARR=( {48..57} {65..90} {97..122} )

# Array count
arrcount=${#ARR[@]}

# return a random string
get_rand_dir(){
    for ((i=1; i<$((RANDOM%30)); i++)) {
        printf \\$(printf '%03o' ${ARR[RANDOM%arrcount]});
    }
}

dir=/tmp/

# appending random characters to make a hierarchy
for ((i=0; i<$((RANDOM%100)); i++)) {
    dir+="$(get_rand_dir)/"
}

echo $dir
mkdir -p "$dir"

oldir=$(echo "$dir" | cut -d '/' -f1-3)

while [[ $dir ]]; do
    dir=${dir%/*}
    cd $dir
    for ((i=0; i<$((RANDOM%100)); i++)) {
        mkdir &>/dev/null -p $(get_rand_dir)
    }
done

tree "$oldir"

OUTPUT

/tmp/x
├── egeDVPW
├── iOkr
├── l
├── o1gye8uF
├── q
│   ├── 4Dlrfagv
│   ├── 4Yxmoqf
│   ├── 8LkyIrXA
│   ├── 8m9kse8s
│   ├── aV
│   ├── in
│   │   ├── 12zdLso68HWlPK
│   │   │   ├── C
│   │   │   ├── DOYt8wUW
│   │   │   ├── FXP
│   │   │   ├── hFLem8
│   │   │   ├── hhHIv
│   │   │   ├── iD87kxs54x04
│   │   │   ├── oFM
│   │   │   ├── OjFT

Now you can create an array of dirs :

shopt -s globstar # require bash4
dirs=( /tmp/x/** )
printf '%s\n' ${dirs[@]}

and populate dirs with files randomly. You have enough examples to do so. I've done the most hard work.