If you want to limit yourself to 0 < n < 100 file per subdirectory, and the leading 5 digits are same 99% of the time, then using the last 2 digits to form the bucket (subdirectory) may be the best way to go. Try it on your sample data to get a feel for wether it would create too many top-level directories.

Well, the point is that I don't really know how they're split up except that I don't think they're very evenly distributed through the whole range. I did try it a couple of ways, but trying every possible combination manually isn't an efficient way to find the sweet spot.

If humans are going to be looking at the data, I recommend using the full ISBN for the filename.

Like this? /12/34/56/78/9/123456789.gif

In reply to Re: Re: brainteaser: splitting up a namespace evenly by perrin
in thread brainteaser: splitting up a namespace evenly by perrin

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