From: jfn@... (Jeremy Nelson)
Date: 2001-02-16T04:10:03+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:10926] Re: /bin/sh script beats pants off ruby script

greg strockbine <gstrock@pacbell.net> wrote:
[snip]
>we use the sh script at work in a makefile where
>it gets called many times and I thought if I could
>rewrite it in ruby it would be much faster, but it
>turns out to be much slower. 
>
>My enthusiasm for ruby just hit a speed bump.

One of the wonderful things about /bin/cp is that it's implementation does
not have to be portable!  What i mean is that /bin/cp can have intimite
knowledge about the operating system and any hints and tricks that can make
its life a lot easier.  Ruby, on the other hand, does not have the same
advantage.  On 4.4BSD systems, /bin/cp mmap()s the file and uses vm tricks
to make the copies about as fast as can be arranged.

Have you given any thought to using system("/bin/cp") instead of syscopy?

Jeremy