From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <a8114c5006a322c2e8aefe0e6a6baf48@vitanuova.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] (no subject)
From: rog@vitanuova.com
In-Reply-To: <b7bb09d1d797aa297942132217e48b06@terzarima.net>
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Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:56:45 +0000
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> (b) it cheats (not reading the Wretched File from start to finish)

it might be a cheat, but it's a darn useful one.

for instance, on my outgoing mail file, tail took <0.02 seconds;
reading the entire file took >10 minutes (lots of it was on the worm).

the same kind of thing applies to other situations when using a file
bigger than one would like to keep in memory, but which isn't possible
to process sequentially.

of course, faced with this kind of thing, one just goes ahead and
guesses (as tail and diff do)...  only for it to have to potential to
go wrong at some unforeseen time in the future.

i suppose one could make such commands default to the safe mode, and
give them an option that says the file is seekable.

i guess i thought there was the potential to do better.