rfrost@cs.ua.oz.au (Richard Frost) (02/20/90)
I have been looking for an Amiga shell with filename completion
for quite some time now and was pleased to see it in Steve Koren's shell.
I think this feature works very well in the RAM DISK and in a HARD DISK
but for a FLOPPY DISK?, well lets say I could grow old waiting for the
filename completion to occur!.
MY SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM:
============================
Steve, I pray you will read this as I hope this idea will be
used by you and many others who decide to implement filename completion.
Have a CACHE that stores all the known filenames for a given
directory. This CACHE can be updated whenever a user does an 'ls' say OR
by getting the user to execute an 'update cache' command in the shell. In
this way the user need only access the entire directory of a disk ONCE and
ONCE only for a resolution of a filename. The CACHE could be maintained
as long as the user wishes, allowing him to delete known 'cache directories'
at any time. Although this may seem a hack, it would be quite a usable system
as most programmers like me, use the same set of disks (3 or 4) that are
referenced AGAIN and AGAIN!
The CACHE feature could be turned on or off depending on whether
or not the user uses a HARD DISK or RAM DISK. It could be an 'options'
setting in the SKSH shell for instance.
The CACHE is also updated whenever the user manipulates files
from direcoties known to the CACHE, ie. copying, removing, renaming.
However, the CACHE will not be informed of changes to files (that it knows
about) by OTHER PROCESSES! But I don't care about this, it will be the
user's responsibility to keep the shell's cache updated when that occurs.
That is my idea, what do you think?
m
--
______________________________________________________________________________
_ ___ | Email Address: rfrost@spam.ua.oz.au
I) I_ |
I\ ichard I rost | FidoNet (ADAM LINK BBS): 3:680/805 Richard Frost
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THE AMIGA, the programmer's dream machine!!
Bewildered Earth Scientist: "How do you re-wire alien equipmnent like that??"
Dr. Who: "Its easy when you've had 900 years experience in alien technology."
______________________________________________________________________________koren@hpfelg.HP.COM (Steve Koren) (02/21/90)
[note about slow filename completion using floppies] > Steve, I pray you will read this as I hope this idea will be > Have a CACHE that stores all the known filenames for a given > directory. This CACHE can be updated whenever a user does an 'ls' say OR I have already implemented this and it will appear in SKsh 1.4 (due in late March). It also allows, among other things, completion on device names, and a supplied script (in Stuff.sksh) allows completion on files inside of .zoo archives (the script can be extended to handle .arc and .lzh archives as well). - steve
rfrost@cs.ua.oz.au (Richard Frost) (02/24/90)
Thanks Steve! In some ways I am not surpised by your reply as
the previous SKSH versions are of a very high techical standard
and I have heard how much effort you have put in it!
Its great that this feature will first appear in YOUR shell!
I hope all goes well, and I await for version 1.4 with great
anticipation!
PS. I have been reading Sys.Amiga for AGES, thinking that
I was unable to post NEWS until I gave it a go one day..
I can finally get in contact with all those great Amiga
programmers out there!
As they say "There's nothing worse than an itch you
can't scratch!"
--
______________________________________________________________________________
_ ___ | Email Address: rfrost@spam.ua.oz.au
I) I_ |
I\ ichard I rost | FidoNet (ADAM LINK BBS): 3:680/805 Richard Frost
---------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
THE AMIGA, the programmer's dream machine!!
Bewildered Earth Scientist: "How do you re-wire alien equipmnent like that??"
Dr. Who: "Its easy when you've had 900 years experience in alien technology."
______________________________________________________________________________