Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!uwvax!tank!mimsy!eneevax!haven!aplcen!wb3ffv!fallst!tkevans
From: tkevans@fallst.UUCP (Tim Evans)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Making /usr/lib/uucp/paths a _binary_ database
Keywords: pathalias UUCP smail
Message-ID: <486@fallst.UUCP>
Date: 31 Dec 88 14:09:03 GMT
Organization: Tim Evans, Fallston, MD
Lines: 25

Please forgive me if this has been discussed before.  :-)

The 'paths' database produced by 'pathalias' has grown to nearly
900K bytes in size.  Granted that I'm not real well connected,
needing 4 hops to get to a backbone, but I've started wondering 
whether the 'paths' database couldn't be a _binary_ file of some
sort so that searches of it might go more quickly.

I'm not very proficient at C, but it seems that since 'paths' is
essentially a two-field set of records it ought not be terribly
hard to make 'pathalias' generate a binary database file.

Can anyone offer any comments on this idea?  (One problem that
comes to my mind right off is that my 'paths' database is produced
for me by a neighbor machine's sysadmin and periodically UUCP'd
to me:  would one machine's binary 'paths' file be usable on 
another?)

Thanks

-- 
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Tim Evans  2201 Brookhaven Court, Fallston, MD  21047   (301) 965-3286