From: Paul Campisi <pcampisi AT ececs DOT uc DOT edu>
Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 14:57:01 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <199705061857.OAA20453@banana.ece.uc.edu>
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: DIR/System question - speed
Cc: fighteer AT cs DOT com
Precedence: bulk

> Please specify what version of DJGPP you are using.  In v1.x, using
> system involved swapping out the entire program to disk before running
> the command; obviously this was an extremely slow task.  In v2.x, the
> speed of system() was vastly improved, and in v2.01, system() attempts
> to emulate as much of the process of calling other programs as
> possible.  So a 2 second delay is way too much for a v2.01 program,
> unless there is something else wrong.  Please post the code fragment you
> use and someone here will try to test it for you.

	I am using DJGPP Version 2.01, and a code fragment would be as
as follows:

system(mycommand);

whereis "mycommand" is a char * which has the users command that they 
want to do. (For example "mycommand"="dir /w")

As I said, it works, just slow. About a 2 sec delay before I see the 
dir on the screen.

> Well, there's always the popen() command, which allows you to spawn an
> external program and redirect its standard input or standard output to a
> file.  To capture the output of 'dir', you'd do something like this:
>
> <CODE REMOVED>
> 
> Strangely, I just tested this and it froze when the pipe command was
> invoked.  Maybe this is a bug?

Hmmm.. Good idea! I cannot test it now, but when I get home tonight I
will test and see if opening the pipe causes a freeze on my machine as 
well.

Thanks!
	Paul