'ls -n' opens password file for reading
Ubben Greg
bink at aplcen.apl.jhu.edu
Tue May 16 13:00:43 AEST 1989
In article <1622 at auspex.auspex.com> guy at auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes:
> he didn't say anything about "ls" without the "-n" flag or with other
> flags. I presume he has a legitimate reason for wanting to do an "ls
> -n" on a system with either "/etc/passwd" or "/etc/group" missing....
Speaking of "ls -n" ... (INFORMATION ARTICLE)
For Bourne shell programmers, the following script magnifies the
speed difference between using "ls -n" and "ls -l" on System V:
mkdir a && cd a # Build playpen
# Create a lot of files with different owners to make ls work hard
sed 's/:.*//; s/.*/chown & & >&/' /etc/passwd | sh -
timex ls -l # Really slow (might want to >/dev/null)
timex ls -n # Much faster (though less portable)
cd .. && rm -fr a # Clean up (be careful)
You can instead just try LS on one of the more popular parents of home
directories for the same effect. For this reason, I never use "ls -l"
in scripts when I don't need the actual owner or group names.
-- Greg Ubben
bink at aplcen.apl.jhu.edu
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