Re: [dev] [sbase] [patch] Optimize 'ls' and add '-U'

From: Evan Gates <evan.gates_AT_gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 09:45:21 -0700

ls | wc -l has more problems, e.g. \n is a legal character in filenames.

-emg

On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 1:36 AM, Nick <suckless-dev_AT_njw.me.uk> wrote:
> Quoth Martti Kühne:
>> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Galos, David
>> <galosd83_AT_students.rowan.edu> wrote:
>> > Based on the discussion in 'coreutils / moreutils - DC a directory counter'
>> > I have optimized sbase ls to easily handle large directories. The major
>> > change is that ls no longer calls 'lstat' on files if it does not have to.
>> >
>> > This patch also add '-U' which keeps the list from being sorted. When using
>> > '-U', ls is constant (except for an argv duplicate) memory.
>>
>>
>> While we're at it, why not fully remove the necessity of wc -l?
>
> Because 'wc -l' is a much better way to do things in the general
> case. Remember, "do one thing and do it well". As has already been
> discussed to death, it's only very unusually large directories that
> using regular ls|wc -l isn't a reasonable thing to do. But even if
> it was always slow, this would be the wrong thing to do.
>
Received on Mon Jul 22 2013 - 18:45:21 CEST