Shrinking ext3 directories

[DervishD <raul@pleyades.net>]

    Hi all :))

    All of you know that if you create a lot of files or directories
within a directory on ext2/3 and after that you remove them, the
blocks aren't freed (this is the reason behind the lost+found block
preallocation). If you want to 'shrink' the directory now that it
doesn't contain a lot of leafs, the only solution I know is creating
a new directory, move the remaining leafs to it, remove the
'big-unshrinken' directory and after that renaming the new directory:

    $ mkdir new-dir
    $ mv bigone/* new-dir/
    $ rmdir bigone
    $ mv new-dir bigone
    (Well, sort of)

    Any other way of doing the same without the mess?

    Thanks a lot :)
    Raúl