From: jpayne AT marimba DOT com (Jonathan Payne)
Subject: B18,B19 (NT 4.0): gnu tools are slow
6 May 1998 22:08:54 -0700
Message-ID: <3550A546.BE5DB547.cygnus.gnu-win32@marimba.com>
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To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com

Hi there,

I have always noticed that the GNU tools are very slow when it comes to
accessing the file system.  Recently I ran:

	ls d:/

and it took so long, and the disk was making so much noise, that I decided to
run a program called NT File Mon which some of you may have heard of.  The thing
I noticed was that LS was apparently reading all the directories 1-level deep. 
And I happened to have a directory with 1000+ files in it at the top level, so
that's why it took even longer than normal.

I'm wondering if this is a known problem.  Why do the GNU tools read the
contents of directories when all it should be doing is the equiv. of a UNIX
stat() in order to do the LS command.  This affects all the GNU tools, whenever
they need to stat files.  cp, find, gnumake, etc., are all very slow and spin
the disk way too much.

There's probably a good reason why it's necessary, but I am hoping there isn't.

Other than the slowness, the GNU tools are great.  Thanks!

JP

PS: Please reply to me, not just the list, because I am not on the list.
-- 
Jonathan Payne, Marimba, Inc.
http://www.marimba.com/people/jpayne/
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