For cases like this, I work from the top, and just keep track of where I've been:

my $basedir = '/top/of/the/tree/';

opendir( ARTISTS, $basedir )
  or die "Can't read from $basedir : $!";

foreach my $artist ( readdir(ARTISTS) ) {
  next if (-D "$basedir/$artist" or $artist =~ m/^[.]*$/);

  opendir( ALBUMS, "$basedir/$artist" )
    or warn "Can't read from $basedir/$artist : $!"
    and next;

  foreach my $album ( readdir(ALBUMS) ) {
    next if (-D "$basedir/$artist/$album" or $album =~ m/^[.]*$/);

    opendir ( TRACKS, "$basedir/$artist/$album" )
      or warn "Can't read from $basedir/$artist/album : $!"
      and next;

    foreach my $track ( readdir(TRACKS) ) {
      next if ($track =~ m/^[.]*$/);

      ...

    }
  }
}

[download]

Yes, it seems like it's more work, but it allows you do special handling as you enter/leave each directory -- maybe you want to create playlists for each artists, etc. And I'm actually dealing with millions of files (scientific data, not music albums)

okay ... I don't actually use code like that -- it's too repetitive ... I use recursive functions (as it's much more than 3 levels deep) and a dispatch table for the directories that need to be handled in a special manner ... but the above at least explains the basic methodology and should be easier to follow.

In reply to Re^2: how to get the parent directory name? by jhourcle
in thread how to get the parent directory name? by juro

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