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I've selected a very large set of folders in Konqueror and copied them from one disk to another. I'm noticing, watching the progress, that it's blatantly not copying in simple depth-first order. Instead it's fluttering madly all over the directory tree. Coming from the Windows world, I've never witnessed anything like this.
It seems in general to be preferring to copy the hugest files first, working its way down to the tiniest files, but not precisely. It also exhibits a large degree of randomness. It did scan the entire set before it started, so I presume it has some deliberate plan in mind.
What's going on? Is this a strategy for avoiding fragmentation? Is it something to do with the low-level arrangement of files on the source disk? Is it a good idea? I'm irked by it and tempted to manually copy the folders one by one to achieve a less scattered placement, but I don't know if Konqueror is actually doing something clever.
Boann
Posted 2018-09-14T22:38:37.260
Reputation: 939
It could be reading them in directory order (ie, more or less the order in which they have been created on the disk, with possible reinsertions if files have been erased and others created). Directories aren't sorted, it's the commands /applications that sort their contents for display/use. – xenoid – 2018-09-15T00:00:38.940
@xenoid From one file to the next it was jumping all over the directory tree, to completely unrelated directories, not finishing one directory at a time. – Boann – 2018-09-15T00:45:01.423
Go look at the source code
– DavidPostill – 2018-09-15T17:35:08.370