(kpathsea.info)Filename database

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3.4 Filename database (`ls-R')
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Kpathsea goes to some lengths to minimize disk accesses for searches
(Note: Subdirectory expansion).  Nevertheless, at installations with
enough directories, searching each possible directory for a given file
can take an excessively long time (depending on the speed of the disk,
whether it's NFS-mounted, how patient you are, etc.).

   In practice, a font tree containing the standard PostScript and PCL
fonts is large enough for searching to be noticeably slow on typical
systems these days.  Therefore, Kpathsea can use an externally-built
"database" file named `ls-R' that maps files to directories, thus
avoiding the need to exhaustively search the disk.

   A second database file `aliases' allows you to give additional names
to the files listed in `ls-R'.  This can be helpful to adapt to "8.3"
filename conventions in source files.

   The `ls-R' and `aliases' features are implemented in the source file
`kpathsea/db.c'.

ls-R

The main filename database.

Filename aliases

Aliases for those names.

Database format

Syntax details of the database file.