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From: mc68020@nonvon.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: stupidity in directory management?
Message-ID: <603@nonvon.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Jul-87 02:31:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: nonvon.603
Posted: Thu Jul  9 02:31:02 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 17:45:09 EDT
Distribution: na
Organization: NONVON Systems Computer Research Group
Lines: 24


   I am frustrated as all hell!  At least on the two versions of UNIX with
which I have direct experience, the directory management is all fu**ed up!

   After a file is removed, it's "slot" in the directory isn't re-used!  The
damned directory keeps growing larger and LARGER.  To make matters worse,
there appears to be no rational way to write a C program to "compact"
the directory, leaving us with the highly undesirable chore of MVing
everything OUT of the damned directory, rmdir'ing, re-mkdir'ing it, and
moving everything back in again.  This wastes LOTS of time on the system,
not to mention the operator/sysadmin's time.

   QUERY:  Why this stupidity in the first place, and **WHY** hasn't 
AT&T or BERSERKELEY ***DONE*** something to fix it???????  I mean really,
it is a trivial matter to identify an rm-ed entry in a directory.  Either
allow the directory management system to use the first available slot,
creating a new slot only if necessary, or develop some mechanism for
rationally compacting these messes from time to time.

   Can those who are in positions of knowledge please explain, without
condescension and rudery, what the story is here, please?  Am I mistaken
about the way directories are arranged, about identifying rm-ed entries?

    INformation, please!