makehistory performance

[Richard Michael Todd]

In message <NDBBKHFIKKIHKJOOJDPOMEBBCEAA.George.Lindholm at ubc.ca>you write:
>'-l'?
>
>A quick look at the source tells me that it controls how often
>sort is called. I'm not sure whether a smaller value or a bigger one
>would be better?

>I did do a few random truss' on the makehistory process and I saw sort
>being called a small percentage of the time so I don't think
>it contributed much to the overall elapsed time.

The sort doesn't contribute much to the time at all.  But as you have the
file size get larger, the file has larger chunks of articles all in the 
same newsgroup in it, meaning makehistory can write those overview records
all at once while only needing to open the overview file for that group once.
This makes writing the overview more efficient.

>Me thinks that the man pages are in need of some serious revisions.

You got that right.