General :: Extract To Multiple Directories Based On File Names?

I'm not sure if this is possible or even where to start. I assume that this can be done with an sh script using tar or similar.I have several very large zip files that contain images for all of the products in my online store. Each image is named after its 13 digit SKU (for example, 9987788000012.jpg). In order to import products into my store, all images are placed into a media directory. Unfortunately, there are over 100,000 images.

So I would like to break the images into sub-folders based on file name. For example, when I extract store_images.zip (or tar or whatever), my extract script would create directories (if they don't already exist) based on the first three digits of each image name, placing each image into the appropriate bottom level directory. For example, "9987788000012.jpg" would be placed in the following directory "media/9/9/8", with media as the root and "8" as the directory that holds any images that start with "998". Perhaps two sub-folders would be less cumbersome.Assuming this requires a script, particularly since it involves scanning image names, creating folders, and saving images to specific directories, which language would serve my needs best? PHP? Has anyone had to do something similar?