Article View: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Article #4258Re: How does del *.* work?
From: Kent Williams
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 1991 15:16
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 1991 15:16
28 lines
1850 bytes
1850 bytes
In article <2yoqV2w163w@bluemoon.uucp> bytehead@bluemoon.uucp (Bryan Price) writes:
>DEL *.* doing it instantly?? You running on a 50MHZ '486 with a SCSI
>drive? I don't think so! :-)
>
>My MS-DOS version of rm is just as fast, and has more options. The
>possible difference that I see is that you may be getting a filename from
>findfirst/findnext, then deleting it, then getting the next filename from
>findnext. I run through findfirst/findnext first, putting all the
>filenames into an array, then delete them.
>
Once again, with feeling:
del <pat>
in COMMAND.COM uses the FCB delete function (13H) in order to nuke files. It
allows '?' wild cards. It is a DOS 1.0 function so it only works in the
current directory, so you have to parse off the path part, change directory
there, delete stuff, then change directory back.
It is much faster than any find-first find-next combination, which in
conjunction with delete-file tends to thrash the disk updating internal tables.
--
Kent Williams --- williams@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu
"'Is this heaven?' --- 'No, this is Iowa'" - from the movie "Field of Dreams"
"This isn't heaven, ... this is Cleveland" - Harry Allard, in "The Stupids Die"
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<3917@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>Path:
arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!lethe!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!ns-mx!umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu!williamsReferences:
<1991Jan8.123410.1564@en.ecn.purdue.edu> <2yoqV2w163w@bluemoon.uucp>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!lethe!yunexus!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!ns-mx!umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu!williams From: williams@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu (Kent Williams) Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer Subject: Re: How does del *.* work? Keywords: del *.* Message-ID: <3917@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> Date: 14 Jan 91 15:16:10 GMT References: <1991Jan8.123410.1564@en.ecn.purdue.edu> <2yoqV2w163w@bluemoon.uucp> Sender: news@ns-mx.uiowa.edu Reply-To: williams@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu (Kent Williams) Organization: U of Iowa, Iowa City, IA Lines: 28