I'm facing a similar directory scheme issue as this node Need directory scheme to store 400,000 images

i came across many of the same questions, answers, and realizations in my quest (most notably that dispersion requires reverse name mapping for numerical ids, frontwards for digests).

i've decided against a serial numeric value for the files, and to use a unique md5 digest for the file id

that digest will then be mapped to a series of 2char directories abcdefghij -> ab/cd/ef/abcdefghij

here's where my issue comes in: md5 offers 3 ways to represent the digest -- binary, b16 and b64

binary isn't applicable for directory mapping.
b16 will give me directories with 256 subdirs
b64 will create 4096 subdirs

a b32 representation would, however, create 1024 subdirs -- right around the magic number where many filesystems have issues with the number of files in them

That said, it seems obvious that I would want a base32 representation of the digest -- except that I have no idea how to create this representation. can anyone offer suggestions?

In reply to Making a base32 representation of md5 by nmerriweather

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