Split a directory based on the filename prefix

Question

I have a very large directory with probably millions of small files in it. It's taking forever to run ls on the directory.

Is there an easy script that I can run to split the directory into smaller ones, based on the prefixes of the filenames. My goal is to wind up with something similar to what the Debian archives' pool directory looks like.

Answer 1

Is this too simple? Just push every file into a single letter directory based on the file first character.

#!/bin/sh


for i in `/bin/ls | xargs`
do
    dir=`echo $i | cut -c 1 -`
    mkdir -p $dir
    mv $i $dir
done

You don't get the 'lib' directories, but you could make special rules for other prefixes.