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Stress Test

One minute 40 seconds of complete boredom and then you see it.


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From the blurb.

This is a question we've asked before, considering the other file managers on Apple's glorious desktop system. We've shown that both Apple's own Finder and independent Path Finder fail miserably at trying to expand a single hive of files. Path Finder runs extra code to limit the listing, and both fail miserably (or crash) if full expansion is somehow accomplished anyway. But the one remaining question was how long it would take for Rixstep's stellar Xfile to expand (enumerate) every last file on a complete Apple file system?

We now know. One minute forty seconds. Or actually a few seconds less than that. See for yourself.

This system runs on a solid-state drive, but still and all. This is something no other file manager can accomplish. Perhaps in the world of open source, but not in the walled garden of Apple. All the others are designed the wrong way - designed to fail.

Get the ACP Test Drive with Xfile at: https://rixstep.com/td

Here it is. You can always fast-forward or scroll to the end.

(What happens here? The root directory for the file system is selected (left pane). The keyboard shortcut 'option-arrow right' begins the 'expand all' operation. (The spinning beachball doesn't appear in the recording.) After 1:35 the operation is complete and the complete hive is listed.)

We wrote about this before but finally tested it full-out. Still haven't calculated how many directories there are on that system, but if you had a nickel for each one, you could probably buy Trump Tower.

It really defies imagination how a cluster of bumbling bunglers running Apple desktops can continue to be so terminally stupid. Not that we've tested the open source alternatives recently, but seriously: they have to be better. Almost anything has to be better. But those on an Apple desktop and not running the ACP - no. That's hopeless.

The latest iteration of Apple OS betas had their Finder (what irony in that name) crashing and forcing a cold reboot just to save the system. Seriously. WTF is that?

Postscript: 2350

This is a rough estimate, but the test machine had approximately 235,000 directories.

This could be ascertaind by running 'sudo find / -type d | wc'.

This means that Xfile processed 2,350 directories per second.

There's more to that processing than getting the directory's name. A number of callbacks are involved. Yet Xfile processed 2,350 per second.

(Yes, that's 2.3 per millisecond. Thanks.)

So how many did Finder and Path Finder process per millisecond?

They didn't. They crashed.

See Also
Developers Workshop: A Walk on the Wild Side

About Rixstep

Stockholm/London-based Rixstep are a constellation of programmers and support staff from Radsoft Laboratories who tired of Windows vulnerabilities, Linux driver issues, and cursing x86 hardware all day long. Rixstep have many years of experience behind their efforts, with teaching and consulting credentials from the likes of British Aerospace, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Lloyds TSB, SAAB Defence Systems, British Broadcasting Corporation, Barclays Bank, IBM, Microsoft, and Sony/Ericsson.

Rixstep and Radsoft products are or have been in use by Sweden's Royal Mail, Sony/Ericsson, the US Department of Defense, the offices of the US Supreme Court, the Government of Western Australia, the German Federal Police, Verizon Wireless, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Microsoft Corporation, the New York Times, Apple Inc, Oxford University, and hundreds of research institutes around the globe. See here.

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