From: "A.Appleyard" <A DOT APPLEYARD AT fs2 DOT mt DOT umist DOT ac DOT uk>
To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 08:44:32 BST
Subject: Re: Many small files versus big clusters

Subject: Re: Many small files versus big clusters
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 95 07:50:36 PDT
Organization: &tSftDotIotE
To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu

  "A.Appleyard" <A DOT APPLEYARD AT fs2 DOT mt DOT umist DOT ac DOT uk> wrote:
> I don't want to be hassled with [Doublespace, Stacker, or similar] ...

  max AT alcyone DOT darkside DOT com (Erik Max Francis) replied:-
> Buy a new hard drive. ...

  I already have 2 hard drives (C: & D:), each half a gigabyte. Anyway, the
bigger the partition (logical drives), the bigger the clusters, the worse the
storage waste caused by having many small files. Not everybody can afford to
keep buying more and more storage.

  "A.Appleyard" <A DOT APPLEYARD AT fs2 DOT mt DOT umist DOT ac DOT uk> write:
> I don't want lots of little partitions ...

  max AT alcyone DOT darkside DOT com (Erik Max Francis) replied:-
> If you think DJGPP isn't worth it, then don't use it. It's really as simple
> as that. No one's forcing you to use it, after all.

  I have no quarrel with djgpp as such. The many-small-files cluster overhead
nuisance is independent of what is stored on the many small files. I was only
suggesting a way of having in djgpp all these conveniences at once:-
  (1) All text and source files in safe reliable accessible ordinary ascii,
not packed or the like.
  (2) Each small library function stored on the library as a separate library
unit so the linker links in only those needed.
  (3) The (source form of each library file) all on one file to avoid the
store wasted by each of many little files needing to start at the start of a
cluster. That idea was a line `#libunit' to be put between each function and
the next in the source file of each djgpp library file.