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

Thanks to all who posted here; it turns out, it wasn't really trivial to escape filenames with special characters, so I built my own script based on those here; here is how it behaves with special character filenames:

$ ~/rndtree.sh ./rndpath 0 3 1
Warning: will create random tree at: ./rndpath
Proceed (y/n)? y
Removing old outdir ./rndpath
mkdir -p ./rndpath/";"/{")?DxVBBJ{w2","L,|+","^VC)Vn.6!"}/"D+,IFJ( LN"
> > > > > > > > > > > 
./rndpath
└── [       4096]  ;
    ├── [       4096]  )?DxVBBJ{w2
    │   ├── [       4096]  D+,IFJ( LN
    │   │   └── [        929]  r2.bin
    │   ├── [       8557]  %3fsaG# Rl;ffXf.bin
    │   └── [      19945]  Dzk .bin
    ├── [       4096]  L,|+
    │   ├── [       4096]  D+,IFJ( LN
    │   │   ├── [       2325]  6Qg#pe5j'&ji49oqrO.bin
    │   │   ├── [      16345]  #?.bin
    │   │   └── [       2057]  Uz-0XtLVWz#}0lI.bin
    │   ├── [       2543]  bbtA-^s22vdTu.bin
    │   └── [      10848]  K46+kh7L9.bin
    ├── [       4096]  ^VC)Vn.6!
    │   ├── [       4096]  D+,IFJ( LN
    │   ├── [      10502]  8yY,MqZ ^5+_SA^.r4{.bin
    │   └── [      17628]  ipO"|69.bin
    └── [      12376]  a2Y% }G1.qDir.bin

7 directories, 11 files
total bytes: 136823 ./rndpath

and here with a safe subset of ASCII:

$ ~/rndtree.sh ./rndpath 1 3 1
Warning: will create random tree at: ./rndpath
Proceed (y/n)? y
Removing old outdir ./rndpath
mkdir -p ./rndpath/"48SLS"/{"nyG","jIC6vj"}/{"PSLd5tMn","V R"}
> > > > > > > 
./rndpath
├── [       4096]  48SLS
│   ├── [       4096]  jIC6vj
│   │   ├── [       4096]  PSLd5tMn
│   │   ├── [       4096]  V R
│   │   │   ├── [        922]  lg.bin
│   │   │   └── [       9600]  VVYG.bin
│   │   ├── [      10883]  B7nt06p.bin
│   │   └── [      19339]  g5uT i.bin
│   ├── [       4096]  nyG
│   │   ├── [       4096]  PSLd5tMn
│   │   └── [       4096]  V R
│   │       └── [       6128]  1tfLR.bin
│   └── [       5448]  Jda.bin
└── [      18196]  KwEXu2O2H9s.bin

Spaces should be handled in both cases - however, note that subdirectory names repeat (while filenames do not).

The script rndtree.sh:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13400312/linux-create-random-directory-file-hierarchy
# Decimal ASCII codes (see man ascii); added space
AARR=( 32 {48..57} {65..90} {97..122} )
# Array count
aarrcount=${#AARR[@]}

if [ "$1" == "" ] ; then
  OUTDIR="./rndpath" ;
else
  OUTDIR="$1" ;
fi

if [ "$2" != "" ] ; then
  ASCIIONLY="$2" ;
else
  ASCIIONLY=1 ;
fi

if [ "$3" != "" ] ; then
  DIRDEPTH="$3" ;
else
  DIRDEPTH=3 ;
fi

if [ "$4" != "" ] ; then
  MAXFIRSTLEVELDIRS="$4" ;
else
  MAXFIRSTLEVELDIRS=2 ;
fi

if [ "$5" != "" ] ; then
  MAXDIRCHILDREN="$5" ;
else
  MAXDIRCHILDREN=4 ;
fi

if [ "$6" != "" ] ; then
  MAXDIRNAMELEN="$6" ;
else
  MAXDIRNAMELEN=12 ;
fi

if [ "$7" != "" ] ; then
  MAXFILECHILDREN="$7" ;
else
  MAXFILECHILDREN=4 ;
fi

if [ "$8" != "" ] ; then
  MAXFILENAMELEN="$8" ;
else
  MAXFILENAMELEN=20 ;
fi

if [ "$9" != "" ] ; then
  MAXFILESIZE="$9" ;
else
  MAXFILESIZE=20000 ;
fi

MINDIRNAMELEN=1
MINFILENAMELEN=1
MINDIRCHILDREN=1
MINFILECHILDREN=0
MINFILESIZE=1
FILEEXT=".bin"
VERBOSE=0 #1

get_rand_dirname() {
  if [ "$ASCIIONLY" == "1" ]; then
    for ((i=0; i<$((MINDIRNAMELEN+RANDOM%MAXDIRNAMELEN)); i++)) {
      printf \\$(printf '%03o' ${AARR[RANDOM%aarrcount]});
    }
  else
    cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc '[ -~]' | tr -d '[$> '
    [ "$VERBOSE" == "1" ] && echo "$D"/"$CFILE"
    cat /dev/urandom \
    | head -c$((MINFILESIZE + RANDOM % MAXFILESIZE)) \
    > "$D"/"$CFILE"
  }
done

echo
tree -a --dirsfirst -s "$OUTDIR"
echo "total bytes: $(du -bs $(echo "$OUTDIR"))"