lq-text
From: lee@sqlee.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin)
Message-Id: <9204192243.AA06941@sqlee.sq.com>
To: lq-text-beta@sq.com
Subject: lq-text 1.12 beta release now available
The latest version of lq-text is 1.12beta, and as of today this is available
(for ftp users only) from
ftp.cs.toronto.edu [128.100.1.105] tmp/lq-text1.12beta.tar.Z
(shortly to move from tmp into pub)
I have no plans to make 1.12 available by mail or tape until it has been
ported to more systems.
As it is, it works `out of the box' on
Machine: MIPS RS3330
Architecture: MIPS RS3330
Operating System: umips ATT V.3.0 1.4.2
Clone of ndbm: sdbm
C Compiler: cc
Flags: -O
Machine: Sun 4/110, Sun 4/260, Sun 4/330,
Architecture: SPARC
Operating System: SunOS 4.1.1
Clone of ndbm: bashash
C Compiler: any of /usr/bin/cc, /usr/5bin/cc, gcc
Flags: -O4, or -O4 -Qoption iropt -l4
Please help me to extend this list! I'll stop calling it a beta release
when there are no known serions bugs (which is true at the moment too), and
when the list of ports is a little longer. Probably in about a month.
New in this release:
* files can be compressed or archived after they're indexed - use lqrename
to update the index so things can find moved, compressed or archived files
* improvements to indexing:
a bitmap instead of a linked list for free data blocks, together with
caches, means that indexing is about four times faster. You can index files
over NFS now, too, without paying an unacceptable perfomrnace penalty.
(Retrieval will always be slower when using NFS, RFS, etc)
* several new programs, including one to print a sorted wordlist, and ones
to rebuild the free bitmap and word list - you can delete the dbm wordlist
and the free list to save storage space; the free bitmap is not needed when
retrieving data, but you will need the wordlist...
* an OPEN LOOK UI front end using the XView toolkit. This is experimental.
* GuidedTour, a file giving a breakdown of each directory and an explanation
of most of the files.
* ozmahash is replaced by bsdhash - a newer version. In fact, there's an
even newer version called `db', from 4.4BSD, but I am not including it
because it seems almost impossible to port to anything.
Bsdhash is noticeably faster than ozmahash, and *much* faster than sdbm,
which in turn is much faster than ndbm.
* Bug reporting - there's a mail template (I hope) to be sent back to me.
It doesn't really matter if I get those or some other format, though.
Mail to lee@sq.com
* Feature requests, discussions, porting problems
Mail to lq-text-beta@sq.com to send to all the beta-testers.
Mail to lee@sq.com to send only to me.
Many thanks to everyone who looks at lq-text1.12 and comments... and helps
me to make it better.
Lee
lee@sq.com Liam Quin The barefoot programmer