Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!gnh-starport.UUCP!jschober
From: jschober@gnh-starport.UUCP (Joey Schober)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Directory size
Message-ID: <8905030917.AA18334@crash.cts.com>
Date: 3 May 89 22:51:54 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: pnet01!pro-sol!pro-charlotte!pro-novapple!gnh-starport!jschober@nosc.mil
Organization: The Internet
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X-Unparsable-Date: Tue May  2 89 15:40:05 EDT

Just a few words on the topic... :)

In my BBS software, as well as ProLine (and probably other programs; I don't
know of any off-hand, though), each message in the bulletin boards is stored as
a separate text file in the directory -- MSG2814, MSG2815, etc.  Some of my
boards have 500 or more messages; the subdirectories therefore have that many
files.  I've been using this setup for around 2 years, now.  I have NOT noticed
any FUNCTIONAL problems with this.  No unknown bug or limitation in ProDOS,
nothing like that.  Access time DOES slow down -- as someone (forgot who,
sorry) said, about 3-4 seconds to access the bottommost file in a directory,
off a hard disk.  HOWEVER, I've since installed CACHE/XL (that comes with
ProSEL, which is one of the greatest packages on any computer... :) -- it
gobbles up about 300 blocks of my /RAM5 volume, and then proceeds to speed disk
I/O up unbelievably, STARTING with directory searches.  That takes care of that
problem........ :)

The only other difficulty is that most programs don't have large enough buffers
to handle the catalog, etc. for such directories.  Uhhhh.... yeah, that's a
problem.  For MY setup, it's not really necessary (the BBS software handles all
file access with BASIC.SYSTEM and MLI calls); if you're going to be using
ShrinkIt, AppleWorks, or even SHRConvert, etc. on the directory <_SFGetFile
even chokes on large directories... but THAT seems to be related to the
NEXT-DISK function, for some reason... or, more accurate, any change of prefix.
Don't ask me why...>, it's better to split the directory up.

Hope that helps!
 
     Joseph F. Schober, Sysop, StarPort BBS [703/931-0947 - 3/12/2400 baud]

ProLine.: jschober@gnh-starport                             ===================
UUCP....: crash!pnet01!gnh-starport!jschober                AppleLink: JSchober
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ARPA....: crash!pnet01!gnh-starport!jschober@nosc.mil       ===================


 * Sent by StarPort BBS at  5/ 2/89  3:50:38 PM