Re: TeX-related things are very slow when I have lots of files

[Werner LEMBERG]

> [...] "/home/joe//texmf" was in the search path and removing it
> solved the problem.  It seems that kpathsea doesn't like the double
> slash: I had $HOME set to /home/joe/ and changing it to /home/joe
> solved the problem.

kpathsea likes the double slash very much!  It has a special
function.  From kpathsea.info, section `subdirectory expansion':

  Two or more consecutive slashes in a path element following a
  directory D is replaced by all subdirectories of D: first those
  subdirectories directly under D, then the subsubdirectories under
  those, and so on.  At each level, the order in which the directories
  are searched is unspecified.  (It's "directory order", and
  definitely not alphabetical.)

    If you specify any filename components after the `//', only
  subdirectories which match those components are included.  For
  example, `/a//b' would expand into directories `/a/1/b', `/a/2/b',
  `/a/1/1/b', and so on, but not `/a/b/c' or `/a/1'.

    You can include multiple `//' constructs in the path.


       Werner