Re:

[Dale R. Worley]

I think what you are asking for is something like:

    i=0
    while ...
    do
      find . -mindepth $i -maxdepth $i ...
      i=$(( i+1 ))
    done

That will look at all the files and directories at one depth before
looking at all the files and directories at the next greater depth.  (It
doesn't have any way of testing when i is larger than the depth of the
file tree.)

Dale