How to get a directory list sorted by date?

[Chris Angelico]

On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 9:15 PM, Tim Chase
<python.list at tim.thechases.com> wrote:
> On 2016-05-15 11:46, Peter Otten wrote:
>> def sorted_dir(folder):
>>     def getmtime(name):
>>         path = os.path.join(folder, name)
>>         return os.path.getmtime(path)
>>
>>     return sorted(os.listdir(folder), key=getmtime, reverse=True)
>>
>> The same idea will work with pathlib and os.scandir():
>>
>> def _getmtime(entry):
>>     return entry.stat().st_mtime
>>
>> def sd_sorted_dir(folder):
>>     return sorted(os.scandir(folder), key=_getmtime, reverse=True)
>
> unless sorted() returns a lazy sorter, you lose most of the advantages
> of scandir() being lazy since you have to read the entire directory
> list into memory to sort it.

I'm not sure a lazy sorter exists. You can't know which is the
oldest/newest file in a directory without knowing all their mtimes.

ChrisA