walking a directory with very many files

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <20090617142431.2b25faf5 at malediction>, Mike Kazantsev wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:53:33 +1200
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo at geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
> 
>> > Why not use hex representation of md5/sha1-hashed id as a path,
>> > arranging them like /path/f/9/e/95ea4926a4 ?
>> > 
>> > That way, you won't have to deal with many-files-in-path problem ...
>> 
>> Why is that a problem?
> 
> So you can os.listdir them?

Why should you have a problem os.listdir'ing lots of files?