From: David Brady <ruby_talk@...>
Date: 2005-09-06T06:52:38+09:00
Subject: Re: Help me clean up this method

Simon Kr�ger wrote:

> David Brady wrote:
>
>> If you have links, you also have du, which IMO is the Right Tool For 
>> This Job:
>>
>> total = `du --max-depth=0|cut -f 1`.to_i
>
>
> sorry for stating the obvious, but: this isn't very portable.


Yup!  :-)

<soapbox>
Portability isn't a good idea here.

(wait for scandalized gasps to quiet down)

The need here was to clean up the code.  The solutions so far have 
bulkily danced around the fact that Find::find doesn't seem to work 
satisfactorily.

If the Standard Library is defective, the proper, *portable* solution 
should be to patch the .c files that are defective.  Until then, if 
we're going to work around the Standard Library, we should be as quick 
and deadly as possible.

I recognize that it may be seen as cheating or possibly even 
inappropriate to suggest "don't use Ruby for this" on a Ruby mailing 
list, but I feel strongly that Ruby's very ability to take advantage of 
external tools is a great strength of the language.  A superior wheel 
already exists; reinventing it poorly does not seem to me to leverage 
Ruby's power very well.

There seems to me to be a "right" way to do this, and it is to have the 
Standard Library work as desired.  Until then, how much effort should be 
spent standardizing on a portable kludge?
</soapbox>

And of course, if the OP is on a different platform, the if statement 
that started my earlier post will become important.  The else clause 
probably reads "then the issues with File::find link don't affect you.  
Use the Standard Library."

Just my $0.02.  Note sig.

-dB

-- 
David Brady
ruby-talk@shinybit.com
C++ Guru.  Ruby nuby.  Apply salt as needed.