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Re: Do we really need correct st_nlink count for directories?


On Apr 24 09:34, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 07:32:01AM -0600, Eric Blake wrote:
> > According to Christopher Faylor on 4/24/2008 7:11 AM:
> >>> subdir counting on local drives as well?  It doesn't seem to fullfil
> >>> any real need anymore, it's just a performance killer.
> >> I thought find used it.
> >
> > find, and some of the coreutils, use it if it is > 1, but only as an 
> > optimization (correct applications should never rely on it being > 1, and 
> > thus have a non-optimal fallback for when it is 1).  The idea of using 
> > st_nlink is to speed up scanning the entire directory (when all you care 
> > about is subdirectories, you can stop after the correct number have been 
> > seen, rather than continuing on to read the entire directory).  But if it 
> > takes an entire directory read to determine a correct st_nlink, in order to 
> > avoid an entire directory as an optimization, then it isn't optimal. I'm 
> > all for dropping correct st_nlink, and using 1 instead.
> 
> Ok, in that case, I vote for nuking it.

Ok, in that case, I'll disable the link counting and upload a 1.7.0-6
package.


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat


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