9,999 sub directories

Sayian

Im wondering if anyone with linux knowledge knows if i had a directory with 9,999 sub directories if speed would still be good. Can it handle that many sub directories?

In my PHP script, when a user uploads an image, im creating a sub directory based off the first 4 numbers in his user id

/images/ is the parent directory

user id 1 would goto /1/1/

user id 99 would goto /99/99/

user id 99999 would goto /9999/99999/

b/c its only taking the first 4 numbers

So to continue my example, user id 140234 would goto /1402/140234/

Is this a good way of doing things? can linux handle this?

thanks

frost110

Why not just rename the image to have the userid_imagename.jpg::

IE:
/userimgs/99_imagename.jpg
/userimgs/9999_imagename.jpg

Many directories would be a PAIN IN THE ASS!

--FrosT

Cent

The reason for this, and I've been looking into this myself, is that there's a limit to the number of files in a subdirectory. Some subsystems begin to break down after 10,000. Since directories are considered files under *nix, at some point you might hit a limit. But from what I understand, it really depends on the particular build that you're using.

The best way I've seen so far is to break up the directories into 3 levels deep.

A user ID of 1234 would go into:
1/2/3/1234/

A user ID of 1240 would go into:
1/2/4/1240/

however, and I haven't really checked into this, the higher the user ID (using this method), the more likely it will go into a directory that contains a large number of other directories... basically, it won't be distributed evenly. IF that makes any sense. If I knew how to create matrix charts, I could probably answer my own question.

Best,
Cent

Weedpacket

Cent wrote:
the higher the user ID (using this method), the more likely it will go into a directory that contains a large number of other directories...

By your scheme it looks like no directory would contain more than ten subdirectories (there are only ten decimal digits, by definition, after all). If the depth of nesting is a problem, then two digits per name, or three digits per name, are perfectly feasible.