du: cache directory size

[Mildred]

Hi,

I noticed that du takes a long time to scan directories and measure
disk usage.

I was thinking that perhaps caching the size of directories could bu
useful. Perhaps, after du computes the size of a directory, it could
write its size in its extended attributes (if the filesystem support
it). Next time, du would only compare the directory atime (or mtime
perhaps) with the time of the scan. That could possibly save some time
during the scan.

Perhaps this is not something to be included in du itself, but I
thought it could be a good idea to give the idea anyway.

Thanks for reading.

Mildred

-- 
Mildred Ki'lya
E-Mail: mildred593(at)online.fr

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