Directory recursion in MX6

Question

I've been asked to create an on-line tree of all the
collateral files on the site such as, .pdf, .doc, .xls. I want to
be able to dynamically grab every filename on the site from every
directory and list it.
Unfortunately, I'm stuck with CFMX6 so I can't use the
"recurse" parm to go through all the subdirs of my site. I've seen
some information out there on how to do this, but no helpful
examples.
I know I need to use recursion and I have a loop set up
that's using it, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to go
as many directory levels deep as I need to. I think I can use the
"type" parm value of "dir" to tell me when I've hit a new directory
to search, but I don't know how to reset back to its root dir once
I'm done searching the sub-level (if that makes any sense).
Any tips or web references?

Answer 1

You are correct you need to use recursion. One of the easiest
ways to
do recursion on your version is either a custom tag or a
component method.
You call either the tag or method passing it the top level
directory.
It loops over this directory output files. When it finds a
directory
entry it calls itself passing in this directory. This new
instance
loops over the next level directory repeating all the above.
Your handing back to the higher level is handled
automatically by the
finishing of these spawned instances.
Basic outline using a custom tag
A basic CFM file:
<cf_directoryScan directory="c://myDir">
The custom Tag named "directoryScan":
<cfdirectory name="dirQry"
directory="#attributes.directory#"...>
<cfloop query="dirQry">
<cfif dirQry.type = "file">
<cfoutput>#dirQry.name#</cfoutput><br/>
<cfelse>
<cf_directoryScan
directory="#dirQry.directory#/#dirQry.name#">
</cfif>
<cfloop>
If you are on an old enough version of CF that
<cfdirectory...> returns
the '.' and '..' directories, you will want to filter these
out so that
you do not create an endless loop of recursion.
Rough, untested code with all the usual warnings.