Development plans for findutils-4.5.x

[James Youngman]

Since I've just announced the creation of the 4.5.x development
release series, here are my current thoughts on what should or might
go into it:

1. Merging code contributions made by Leslie Polzer as part of his
Google Summer of Code 2007 work.   This includes:
a. Enhancements to xargs to cope dynamically with platforms where the
value of ARG_MAX is in fact an overestimate.
b. An xargs bugfix allowing the correct handling of child exit values
126 and 127 and better diagnosis of exec failure.
c. Extended attribute support for find
d. Replacement of the updatedb shell script with a C program (benefits
include correct handling of paths with spaces, among other things)

2. Move some of the find optimisations currently done at high
optimisation (-O) levels down to lower levels.

3. Consider moving from fts() to the forthcoming gfts()

4. This is also an opportunity to consider overhauling the locate
database.  This might allow several possible enhancements
 - make database updates more efficient by performing incremental
updates (this would probably mean adding a 3rd format).
 - being more NFS-friendly by using a federated database composed of
fragments at each mount point.


Your suggestions would be appreciated, too.

Thanks,
James.