Create a file listing all files in directory Linux

This is really simple stuff, but, since I never had a formal Linux class, I never knew!

To create a .txt file listing all the files in a directory simply enter:

ls > anyfilenameyouwant.txt

I wanted to create a text file that listed all of the MP3's in my Home/Music directory.  Good thing I was using Linux, because this incredibly simple task is impossible without installing software in Windows.  It is really quite powerful for getting things done!

All I had to do was.  Open a terminal.  CD to the Music directory and enter:

ls *.mp3 > mp3list.txt

mp3list.txt is just a name I made up on the spot.  The file did not yet exist, but it does now!

Another neat little trick I learned is to create an alphabetized version of a file.  This should only be done with simple files like .txt or .dat.  You see I had been compiling a list of songs that I wanted to add to a compilation I am going to burn for someone, and they were not in any sort of order.  I wanted the list to be alphabetical for readability purposes.

cat my_mix.txt |sort -d my_mix_AZ.txt

That's it!  It creates the my_mix_AZ.txt file on the fly.  Just be very careful with this.  If you designate the second file the same as the first it will erase everything.  I found out the hard way.  Luckily I had another copy laying around in my messy folders.

Now I can take the two files and diff them using Meld, or just eyeball them side by side to find differences so much easier now that I have alphabetical versions.