Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site wjh12.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!wjh12!kendall From: kendall@wjh12.UUCP (Sam Kendall) Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: /tmp vs. /usr/tmp (System V) Message-ID: <528@wjh12.UUCP> Date: Sun, 14-Oct-84 22:03:11 EDT Article-I.D.: wjh12.528 Posted: Sun Oct 14 22:03:11 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 16-Oct-84 06:08:43 EDT References: <5279@brl-tgr.ARPA> Organization: Delft Consulting Corp., New York Lines: 22 > No utility should use /tmp for large files. That is what /usr/tmp is for. (I think this is only supposed to be the case for USG UNIX. Do non-USG utilities use /usr/tmp much or at all?) But I have seen a System V system with a small /usr/tmp and a very large /tmp; conversely, I have seen a 3B2 which came configured with a small /tmp and large /usr/tmp--but the system utilities (compiler, assembler) on the 3B2 used /tmp by default, leading to overflows! There is an undocumented (?) way around this--the TMPDIR environment variable, which many utilities on System V use to determine their choice of /tmp directory, if TMPDIR is available. It would be nice if there was a standard program which would look at the output of df and output the proper TMPDIR value, perhaps based on a given amount of disk space required--shell scripts or .profile's could use it. I have a use for such things, and I think anyone else who uses a lot of tmp space (e.g., anyone who uses the wonderful but space-greedy System V C cross- referencer "cxref") would also. Does anyone think this is a good idea? Any volunteers to write it? I'm not on a System V system. Sam Kendall {allegra,ihnp4,ima,amd}!wjh12!kendall Delft Consulting Corp. decvax!genrad!wjh12!kendall