Discussion on: Attempting to Learn Go - Listing Files By Extension

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Steve, why do you sort inside the loop on every iteration?

for _, file := range dir {
    if !file.IsDir() {
        ...
        sort.Strings(m[ext[len(ext)-1]]) // <-- HERE
    }
}

And here's my take on it. You can sort by predicate. It's not exactly very efficient though, since the extension is recalculated every time. But come on, Go could be really annoying sometimes. Look at this verbosity:

type ByExt []string

func (a ByExt) Len() int           { return len(a) }
func (a ByExt) Swap(i, j int)      { a[i], a[j] = a[j], a[i] }
func (a ByExt) Less(i, j int) bool { return filepath.Ext(a[i]) < filepath.Ext(a[j]) }

...

func main() {
    ...
    files := []string{}
    for _, file := range dir {
        if !file.IsDir() {
            files = append(files, file.Name())
        }
    }
    sort.Sort(ByExt(files))
    ...
}

In Ruby that would be:

filenames.sort_by { |f| File.extname f }

Steve Layton • Feb 23 '19

Hah. You caught me! The sort should have been moved up into the print function(s) at the very least. It's a bad design decision - I put it there at first just for the sake of simplicity and never got around to cleaning it up. It doesn't really matter in a directory of a few files but would really impact performance in a larger directory. Something like the following might be fine, and still pretty simple to follow.

func plainList(m map[string][]string, v []string) {
    for _, value := range v {
        sort.Strings(m[value])
        for _, file := range m[value] {
            fmt.Println(file)
        }
    }
}

I think I may update the article to make sure it's called out for clarity.

Dirk Olbrich • Feb 24 '19

You don't mind?

func plainlist(m map[string][]string, order string) string {
    // 1. get all keys of the map
    var keys []string
    for k := range m {
        keys = append(keys, k)
    }

    // 2. sort by order type
    switch order {
    case "desc", "Desc", "DESC":
        for ext := range m {
            sort.Sort(sort.Reverse(sort.StringSlice(m[ext])))
        }
        sort.Sort(sort.Reverse(sort.StringSlice(keys)))
    default:
        for ext := range m {
            sort.Strings(m[ext])
        }
        sort.Strings(keys)
    }

    // 3. build a concatenated string
    var list string
    for _, k := range keys {
        list = fmt.Sprintf("%v\n%v", list, m[k])
    }
    return list
}

use it with:

fmt.Println(plainlist(m, "asc"))
fmt.Println(plainlist(m, "desc"))

Dirk Olbrich • Feb 23 '19 • Edited

Nah, no need for the boilerplate to define a custom sort. This would do sorting the map:

var m = make(map[string][]string)
for _, file := range dir {
    if !file.IsDir() {
        fileName := file.Name()
        ext := strings.Split(fileName, ".")
        switch {
        case len(ext) > 1:
            m[ext[len(ext)-1]] = append(m[ext[len(ext)-1]], fileName)
        case len(ext) == 1:
            m["no-ext"] = append(m["no-ext"], fileName)
        }
    }
}
for ext := range m { sort.Strings(m[ext]) }

Dirk Olbrich • Feb 23 '19 • Edited

Edit: sorting the ˋ[]stringˋ within the ˋmap[string][]stringˋ. The map itself can't be sorted.

Dmitry Yakimenko • Feb 23 '19

I don't have a map in my version. I sort an array by a predicate.

Dirk Olbrich • Feb 23 '19

Yes, I have seen it. Your approach is different by just sorting a list of filenames. The orginal intent is to sort files by extension into different buckets.

Your use of filepath.Ext() is quit clever. Haven't thought of that.

Dirk Olbrich • Feb 23 '19 • Edited

This would make the example even shorter:

var m = make(map[string][]string)
for _, file := range dir {
    if !file.IsDir() {
        fileName := file.Name()
        ext := filepath.Ext(fileName)
        m[ext] = append(m[ext], fileName)
    }
}
for ext := range m { sort.Strings(m[ext]) }

Steve Layton • Feb 24 '19

@detunized @dirkolbrich

Thanks for the replies! filepath.Ext()! Didn't occur to me to try that. It goes to show that the standard library really is pretty complete.

Dirk, I like the for ext := range m { sort.Strings(m[ext]) } solution then I wouldn't need to have a separate sort in each "print" function, it's much clearer that way.