File Management, How to List All

[ray <ray@aarden.us>]

I would like to better manage my files to manage duplications and versions.  

On Windows, I use a VBA module in Excel; execute in a specific directory and it records all files along with the path, size, type, dates.  On Debian 8.2, an ls -al -R gives the data but the output prints a directory and all the files under that directory.  Capturing this as text list all the files but the path is not recorded from each file.  With so many directories, it is not reasonable to edit this by hand.

So I am wondering what would be some good methods for recording my file system data so it may be used programmatically.  I like doing this is a spreadsheet as I can sort and filter, drag and copy, drag and iterate, and programmatically build large scripts.

As Linux has a lot of tools not available in Windows, I do not want to limit solutions to spreadsheets and databases; I am open.

Thanks in advance,
Ray