I have a hardware mp3 player which seems to play the tracks in the order they were stored in the file system of the player. Hence, if i copy the files 01.mp3, 03.mp3 and 02.mp3 to the player in that order, they will be played in that very same order.
Which is annoying.
If copy a whole directory containing mp3-files to the player from a computer of mine running UNIX, the cp program will copy the files in whatever order the filenames are stored in that directory. My solution to this is to either copy the files of the directory one by one in the desired order, or by "sorting" the directory by creating new links to the files in the desired order, removing the old links and then renaming. This leaves me with a new set of links that are sorted.
I am aware of the fact that this "method of sorting" is highly unreliable as the only thing it relies on is the way the OS of my very computer manages directories. But, it does work.
Now, i have noticed that Windows seems to treat the files in directories in the same way as cp does. If i drag and drop a directory from a harddisk to my mp3 player, the files will be copied in the order they were created on the disk.
Of course, i am not able to port the program that sorts directories as Windows does not comply with POSIX (and a lot of other reasons), and even if it would be possible, i am not sure that i could exploit NTFS in the way i would like. Before i dig into this, i would like to ask if it is possible to fiddle with NTFS like i have been doing. I would also like to know if there are any better ways to accomplish my goal, which simply is to have the mp3 tracks played in the right order.
Good luck!