Use FATSORT to sort mp3 files & folders alphabetically
Posted: Sun 17 May 2009, 01:40
How to copy files/folders to a mp3 player alphabetically
My mp3 player has 2G base FAT32 memory & takes an additional FAT16 or FAT32 SD memory card.
It can handle folders, subfolders and sub-subfolders and keep all their files grouped properly - it also remembers the place in a file where it is stopped.
Just the thing I thought for audio-books where the files can be split into convenient 20-min segments.
But it will only play mp3 files in the order they were written to the memory card(s) - it doesn't read playlists & the onboard op-system can't sort filenames or folder names.
This puts me at the mercy of the copy algorithms used by the operating systems since I need the book chapters in the right order.
Puppy Linux can only do an alphabetic copy within folders by use of the 'select-all' icon in the top toolbar and a drag/drop to the target folder - this gets tedious and multi folder alphabetic copies don't work.
The solution is FATSORT - this is a command-line program that alphabetically sorts the FAT16/FAT32 name table of a memory card in a matter of seconds no matter what order you copied the files or folders!!!
I downloaded the (25K) fatsort-0.9.10-187.tar.gz from http://fatsort.berlios.de/
extracted it to / then compiled & installed as per included instructions. Fatsort installed to /usr/local/sbin which is not in the PATH declaration so I made a symlink to access it from /usr/sbin which is in the PATH
I can report that it works excellently on my frugal puppy411
The helpfile gives the following options:-
-------------------------------------------------
Usage: fatsort [options] device
Options:
-c Ignore case of file names
-f Force sorting even if filesystem is mounted
-h Print some help
-i Print file system information only
-l Print current order of files only
-o flag Sort order of files where flag is one of
d : directories first (default)
f : files first
a : files and directories are not differentiated
-n Natural order sorting
-d dir Sort directory dir only
-D dir Sort directory dir and all subdirectories
-q Be quiet
-r Sort in reverse order
-v Print version information
Device must be a FAT16 or FAT32 file system. FAT12 is not supported yet.
Example: fatsort /dev/sda
-----------------------------------------------------
Fatsort normally only works on unmounted devices.
FATSort Utility 0.9.10 by Boris Leidner <fatsort(at)formenos.de>
My mp3 player has 2G base FAT32 memory & takes an additional FAT16 or FAT32 SD memory card.
It can handle folders, subfolders and sub-subfolders and keep all their files grouped properly - it also remembers the place in a file where it is stopped.
Just the thing I thought for audio-books where the files can be split into convenient 20-min segments.
But it will only play mp3 files in the order they were written to the memory card(s) - it doesn't read playlists & the onboard op-system can't sort filenames or folder names.
This puts me at the mercy of the copy algorithms used by the operating systems since I need the book chapters in the right order.
Puppy Linux can only do an alphabetic copy within folders by use of the 'select-all' icon in the top toolbar and a drag/drop to the target folder - this gets tedious and multi folder alphabetic copies don't work.
The solution is FATSORT - this is a command-line program that alphabetically sorts the FAT16/FAT32 name table of a memory card in a matter of seconds no matter what order you copied the files or folders!!!
I downloaded the (25K) fatsort-0.9.10-187.tar.gz from http://fatsort.berlios.de/
extracted it to / then compiled & installed as per included instructions. Fatsort installed to /usr/local/sbin which is not in the PATH declaration so I made a symlink to access it from /usr/sbin which is in the PATH
I can report that it works excellently on my frugal puppy411
The helpfile gives the following options:-
-------------------------------------------------
Usage: fatsort [options] device
Options:
-c Ignore case of file names
-f Force sorting even if filesystem is mounted
-h Print some help
-i Print file system information only
-l Print current order of files only
-o flag Sort order of files where flag is one of
d : directories first (default)
f : files first
a : files and directories are not differentiated
-n Natural order sorting
-d dir Sort directory dir only
-D dir Sort directory dir and all subdirectories
-q Be quiet
-r Sort in reverse order
-v Print version information
Device must be a FAT16 or FAT32 file system. FAT12 is not supported yet.
Example: fatsort /dev/sda
-----------------------------------------------------
Fatsort normally only works on unmounted devices.
FATSort Utility 0.9.10 by Boris Leidner <fatsort(at)formenos.de>