Re: /proc slows % echo /**/*/etc/r*(/N)

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca>]

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On 2024-01-21 11:09, Bart Schaefer wrote:
>> Why /**/*/ rather than just /**/ ?  The extra /*/ there will expand
>> symbolic links, which are normally skipped by /**/.

I just now realized that.

>> ... so by expanding that you're traversing the
>> whole filesystem again, which takes you back to /proc/ again, and so
>> on for every PID until zsh gives up (probably because it can't
>> allocate any more memory).

It had that looping feeling.  Didn't realize that it was crashing tho, I 
thought it was actually finishing.

> I suspect previously you weren't adding that extra /*/.  What do you
> mean for that to accomplish?

      % echo /**/*/etc/r*(/N) #BAD
      % echo /**/*etc/r*(/N)  #GOOD

... at some point the '/' got added, don't know. I just missed it.
All good.  Man, what a strange adventure tho.

> There's no glob qualifier for that, if that's what you mean.  As it
happens, those directories always appear to be empty, so you can find
them with /*(/L0)

Ok I'll look at that.  Mind, the above has solved the problem.  Still one might save a millisecond avoiding searches of those virtual directories -- or not.

> Without trying it, which I'm not going to do, I think the answer to
your specific question might be:

echo /**/^(proc|sys)/etc/r*(N)

Hangs. Never mind!



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