From: Jim Bob <invalid@...>
Date: 2003-08-17T04:16:36+09:00
Subject: [RCR] Dir.recurse

I think it'd be useful (and worthwhile) to have a Dir.recurse method.
This method would take two optional arguments and a mandatory block. The
first argument, if given, is the directory to start recursing from. If
it is omitted, then recursion starts from the current directory. The
second argument, if given, specifies a maximum depth to recurse to. If
omitted, recursion would go as deep as possible.

The method would change to each directory under the current working
directory in turn, and also pass each directory's name to the block. The
block would be executed once for each directory.

So, given a directory tree like
		somedir
	   /	\
	sub		sub2
	/  \
ssub	ssub2

'Dir.recurse("/somedir") { |x| puts x }' would print:
/somedir
/somedir/sub
/somedir/sub/ssub
/somedir/sub/ssub2
/somedir/sub2

(though the order could differ, of course.)

Likewise, 'Dir.recurse("/somedir", 1) { puts Dir.pwd }'
would print:
/somedir
/somedir/sub
/somedir/sub2

i.e., only going one directory below the start directory.

Of course, in actual usage, you'd probably be more often interested in
the files in the directories than in the directories themselves.

Below is an example of how this could be implemented. I'm sure it needs
work, but I provide it just to give the general idea of what I am
talking about.
--------------------------------------------------
class Dir

  def Dir.recurse(d=".", maxdepth=nil, &block)
	raise ArgumentError unless block_given?
	# If "maxdepth" is not specified, recurse as deeply as possible
	if maxdepth
	  return 0 if maxdepth < 0
	  maxdepth -= 1
	end
	# Save working directory so it can be restored.
	start = Dir.pwd
	d = File.expand_path(d)
	begin
	  Dir.chdir(d)
	  block.call(d)
	  Dir.entries(d).each do |f|
		next unless (FileTest.directory? f) && (f !~ /^\.{1,2}$/)
		Dir.recurse(f, maxdepth, &block)
	  end
	  # Rescue "permission denied" errors, so that recurse continues and
	  # working directory is correctly restored. 
	rescue Errno::EACCES
	  $stderr.puts $!
	end
	Dir.chdir(start)
  end
end
--------------------------------------------------