Re: lynx-dev visited links: suggestion

[Leonid Pauzner]

19-Jan-99 02:26 Philip Webb wrote:
> individual compilers of Lynx on a PC or a shared system (like me)
> do or can create their own  /tmp  directory for Lynx to use.
> one advantage i have found is that Visited Links is a file there:
> it doesn't have a special name, but is distinguishable by its length,
> at least if your Lynx session lasts days or weeks, eg using Screen.
> if Lynx crashes or the system gets rebooted, the VL file remains
> & you can rename it eg to  vl990105.html  for future access using  g ;
> of course, if you actually  q  out of Lynx, you will lose it.
> whence a suggestion & a question:

I thought on Visited Links being persistent across sessions.
First, this list getting to be very long and we should cut it off
by some rule. Second, this list is without repetitions, e.g., if
you follow a link that was visited before - it will be added on the top
AND removed from its previous location, this check rather slow
for a long list.  Of course, we should keep list in memory, not on a disk
while we are running lynx, and save it on quit but be aware of delay
on startup (we should optimize it somehow, say load VL file when you press
Shift-V for the first time). Another problem from multiple lynx sessions
started at the same account, like with persistent cookies (still open).


> it would be useful for everyone to save the VL file upon quitting Lynx,
> as an option in  lynx.cfg : you would tell Lynx where to save it
> & it would create some name, eg using the date as above.
> is there any difficulty?  where should i look to try making it so?

> when you enter  V , Lynx doesn't seem to recover the VL page from  /tmp ,
> since when i renamed the existing  222 K  file as above,
> Lynx reproduced it in full --  c 950  links -- when i entered  V  again;
> it does replace the previous file with a newly-numbered version, however.
> does Lynx keep the whole VL file in memory, does it  grep  /tmp  or what?
> it would be useful to be able to save the existing VL file
> & start a new one within a Lynx session, to avoid delay after entering  V ;
> it also seems a bit prodigal if Lynx keeps the whole thing in memory.

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