RJT> I've heard it said elsewhere that *.msg should be a whole lot less 
 RJT> of a problem for unix-type platforms than it was 
 RJT> elsewhere,  though I can't recall the reason given 
 RJT> at the moment.  I know that back when I was 
 RJT> programming this sort of thing under CP/M and 
 RJT> early on in DOS,  that was a sequential search and 
 RJT> could take a lot of time.
 
That's true, although it depends a lot on the UNIX variant and the
filesystem employed.
 
Stock SVR4 UNIX running UFS (UNIX File System) has problems with
directories having more than 32,768 entries, for example. On a Sun Ultra
Enterprise 150 (Ultra 1 in a fancy box), I have clocked the creation of
files above this limit to take nearly a real second. This was running
Solaris 2.5.1 (quite old), but I believe the problem is still there (but
not as bad) in Solaris 2.8. Installing the Veritas Filesystem (VxFS) solves
this problem, as it is an extent-based allocator, but the license for that
can run in the thousands of dollars per machine.
 
I have no clue about Linux, though (I'm a UNIX programmer, only use Linux
on a hobby basis and for firewalls).
 
Wes

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