From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: John Wiegley Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: request for review: Doing direct file I/O in Emacs Lisp Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 02:20:46 -0700 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1084305963 9744 80.91.224.253 (11 May 2004 20:06:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 20:06:03 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Tue May 11 22:05:51 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BNdVf-00059J-00 for ; Tue, 11 May 2004 22:05:51 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BNdVe-0003wi-00 for ; Tue, 11 May 2004 22:05:51 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1BNdT9-00049y-3q for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Tue, 11 May 2004 16:03:15 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.34) id 1BNdSv-00047w-7e for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 May 2004 16:03:01 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.34) id 1BNdSO-0003x8-GD for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 May 2004 16:02:59 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.41.8] (helo=mx20.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (TLSv1:DES-CBC3-SHA:168) (Exim 4.34) id 1BNdRM-0003gQ-JF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 May 2004 16:01:24 -0400 Original-Received: from [66.111.4.26] (helo=out2.smtp.messagingengine.com) by mx20.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1BNTkz-0003GJ-Hb for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 11 May 2004 05:41:01 -0400 X-Sasl-enc: facicz6k2UgNyqhrevwXlw 1084268373 Original-Received: from Majnun.newartisans.com (65-101-11-205.phnx.qwest.net [65.101.11.205]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 644E3B46C1B for ; Tue, 11 May 2004 05:39:33 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: by Majnun.local (Postfix, from userid 501) id 168222749EF; Tue, 11 May 2004 02:20:46 -0700 (PDT) Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org In-Reply-To: (Richard Stallman's message of "Mon, 10 May 2004 13:54:56 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.110002 (No Gnus v0.2) Emacs/21.3.50 (darwin) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.4 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:23174 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:23174 Richard Stallman writes: > I deliberately decided not to add this feature to Emacs because it > tends to lead to a demand for lots more features to "make it > complete", and that ultimately leads to a lot more complexity. For > most purposes, reading files into buffers is just as good. > > Why do you think we should add this feature now? I understand that rationale, but in this case Eshell has a crying need for being able to directly write to files. It makes output redirection thousands of times faster, and also makes it possible to output to device files and named pipes. At present, output redirection is so slow that I have to spawn zsh to run commands which generate over 10,000 lines of output (such as debugging printfs). I have always deplored this, since Eshell satisfies me in almost every other respect. I don't mind even if we use a custom interface, strictly for Eshell's needs; but the file handle API seemed so simple, I thought others might be interested in it too. John