Creating complex path structure in linux - bash

Question

I am having trouble creating the following directory structure. It is to test a scanner program to see if it can handle it.
Start inside /data/
Inside /data/ there are 2 sub-directories. /data/sub1 and /data/sub2
Now, this gets complex :)
In each of the sub-directories there are 2 more sub-directories. For first sub: /data/sub1/sub1/ and /data/sub1/sub2 and for second sub /data/sub2/sub1/ and /data/sub2/sub2
... this goes on to a depth of 16 levels, with a total directory of 65,536.
What I have so far, this only creates 1 subdirectory inside /data/, 16 folders deep. I am thinking of using the following script recursively for the subdirectories created along the way. And for the subdirectories it then creates. And so on. But I can't imagine scripting it.
count=0;
folder=$(printf "Folder%02dB" $count);
mkdir -p $folder;
while [ $count -lt 16 ]; do
((count=$count+1));
folder=$(printf "Folder%02dB" $count);
mkdir -p $folder;
cd $folder;
done
Anyone has any ideas on how to create such directory structure? How to proceed? Thanks!

Answer 1

Recursion is a good way to do this.
#! /bin/bash
godeep()
{
if [ $1 -lt 16 ]
then
((level = $1 + 1))
mkdir sub1
cd sub1
godeep $level
cd ..
mkdir sub2
cd sub2
godeep $level
cd ..
fi
}
godeep 1
~

Answer 2

You shouldn't be incorporating $count in the folder name. That's just used to count the recursion depth.
Simplest would be to define a function to create a single level, and call it recursively.
create_folders() {
if (( $1 > 16 )); then
return
fi
depth=$(($1 + 1))
mkdir sub1; (cd sub1; create_folders $depth)
mkdir sub2; (cd sub2; create_folders $depth)
}
create_folders 1
Using () around the cd and recursive call keeps them from affecting the working directory and variables in the current call.