From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2006-11-03T00:41:00+09:00
Subject: Re: remote file glob

greg wrote:
> What is the fastest way to do a recursive file glob on a remote server?
>  Keep in mind that I want to do some filtering based on the directory
> name, file properties, and file extensions.
> (I want to copy these files, but I assume once I have the list, that
> using Net::FTP will be trivial)
> 
> I am concerned that just using ftp.chdir and ftp.list will be slow.
> Perhaps there is a faster way using Net:SSH.  I had an idea to try to
> run a ruby program on the server (ruby is installed on the remote
> server)
> cmd = "ruby -e ' #{ File.read( ruby_glob_program ) } ' "
> 
> Net::SSH.start(SERVER, :username => u, :password => p) do |session|
>   input, output, error = session.process.popen3( cmd )
> 
> 
> 
If you're talking about a Linux or other Unix-like server, indexing a
filesystem is not something you want to do often. It *is* slow, even
using native utilities like "find", or its cousin "slocate -u". What
most sites do is run a cron job in the off hours to build the "slocate
-u" database, and then do searches using the database.

If you need more current indexing, you probably need to look at the
application and have it do its own index maintenance.