How come "ls -U" on a directory that contains many files takes some time, while doing "ls -U | head" returns an answer immediately?

iddober

9/17/23, 12:35 PM

When you want to get a sample of file names from a directory that contains many files, it is advised to do "ls -U | head", because otherwise doing "ls" alone can take quite some time.

However, why doesn't "ls -U" by it self does not start returning outputs as soon as it ran?

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John Mahowald

9/17/23, 10:11 PM

GNU ls -U means unsorted output, so it does not need to wait for all the directory contents to start printing them.

head will close stdin and quit after a small number of lines. When the writer to the pipe, ls in this case, has no more readers, it will quit. This will flush all the I/O involved after only a small number of lines, making it seem snappy in interactive use.

Further reading: Process not closing when stdin is closed

A noticeable to humans delay in listing directory contents is a sign of exceeding practical limits. Lots of files in a directory means large file system metadata, and so a lot of I/O. Lots typically means hundreds of thousands of files, even for production tested file systems.

Beyond a certain number of files, it makes sense to reconsider alterative directory layouts and databases. Short term, put the problem volume on fast SSDs to make its performance tolerable.

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Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: How come "ls -U" on a directory that contains many files takes some time, while doing "ls -U | head" returns an answer immediately?

TH: เหตุใด "ls -U" ในไดเร็กทอรีที่มีไฟล์จำนวนมากจึงใช้เวลานาน ในขณะที่ "ls -U | head" ส่งคืนคำตอบทันที

RO: Cum de „ls -U” într-un director care conține multe fișiere durează ceva timp, în timp ce „ls -U | head” returnează un răspuns imediat?

RU: Почему «ls -U» для каталога, содержащего много файлов, занимает некоторое время, а выполнение «ls -U | head» возвращает ответ немедленно?

VI: Tại sao "ls -U" trên một thư mục chứa nhiều tệp lại mất một chút thời gian, trong khi thực hiện "ls -U | head" lại trả về câu trả lời ngay lập tức?

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