walking a directory with very many files

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <20090617214535.108667ca at coercion>, Mike Kazantsev wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:04:37 +1200
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo at geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
> 
>> 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?
> 
> I shouldn't, and I don't ;)

Then why did you suggest that there was a problem being able to os.listdir 
them?