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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!rlgvax!dennis
From: dennis@rlgvax.UUCP (Dennis.Bednar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Improve response time with paths
Message-ID: <697@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Nov-87 22:52:37 EST
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.697
Posted: Thu Nov 12 22:52:37 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Nov-87 02:32:23 EST
References: <15000048@silver> <2408@im4u.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Consoles Inc, Reston VA
Lines: 29
Summary: How UNIX S5 does path searching - cache in memory

In article <2408@im4u.UUCP>, jai@im4u.UUCP (Jai Srinivasan) writes:
> In article <15000048@silver> creps@silver.bacs.indiana.edu proposes 
> the use of a ramdisk to store BAT files that start up programs and have
> the ramdisk as the first directory of the PATH variable.  The advantage
> being that in most cases most directories of the PATH do not need to
> be searched as the BAT file will be found on the ramdisk and it will
> have the entire directory name of the program that needs to be run.
> 

This is slightly off the topic, but certain versions of the UNIX
shell cache command names in memory of the running shell (translate shell
to COMMAND.COM for MSDOS).  If the command & directory is not in memory, a
full directory search occurs, and if found, is added to the in-RAM
cache.  To look at the cache, there is the "hash" command that
the user can type in.  There are also commands to forget the cache,
useful say, if you add a private "ls" command, and want your private
ls command to be found *first* before the public one already in cache.

With the way MicroSoft is migrating MSDOS to look like UNIX,
perhaps a future version of COMMAND.COM will have such a feature.

Personally, I think that path caching is a better approach than
usinge hard-coded aliases used by CED, (suggested by another person
on the net).
-- 
FullName:	Dennis Bednar
UUCP:		{uunet|sundc}!rlgvax!dennis
USMail:		CCI; 11490 Commerce Park Dr.; Reston VA 22091
Telephone:	+1 703 648 3300