[erlang-questions] Newbie questions about file module

[Ville Silventoinen]

Hi,

I've written a small Erlang program that copies directory trees. I cannot
figure out how to set the owner (Unix UID and GID) for symbolic links,
because file:write_file_info/2 modifies the target file, not the symlink.
Unix command chown has -h option for this purpose. Is there any way of doing
this in Erlang? Why isn't there file:write_link_info/2? Perhaps I've missed
something, is there a way to copy the symlink as it is? (I do use read_link
and read_link_info.)

My second question relates to eprof. I analysed the execution of my program
(copying /usr/local/lib to NFS directory). The eprof:total_analyse/0 results
are below ("mirror11" is my module). It shows that 82% of the time goes in
file_name_1/1, which "Generates a flat file name from a deep list of atoms
and characters (integers)". Does this really mean that 82% of time is spent
here, instead of doing disk I/O? I would have expected file:copy/2 to be on
the top of the list. (There are 481 directories and 6744 files in my
/usr/local/lib.)

Any comments would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Ville

7> eprof:total_analyse().
FUNCTION                                       CALLS      TIME
file:file_name_1/1                             3086234    82 %
gen:do_call/4                                  29869      2 %
file:check_args/1                              93941      2 %
gen:wait_resp_mon/3                            29869      1 %
mirror11:get_file_info/2                       21195      1 %
file:check_and_call/2                          29869      1 %
file:call/2                                    29869      1 %
gen:call/4                                     29869      1 %
file:file_name/1                               36615      1 %
gen_server:call/3                              29869      1 %
mirror11:do_file/4                             6744       1 %
erlang:'++'/2                                  21680      0 %
erlang:monitor/2                               29869      0 %
file:read_link_info/1                          14451      0 %
file:copy_int/3                                13488      0 %
erlang:whereis/1                               29869      0 %
erlang:demonitor/1                             29869      0 %
erlang:list_to_tuple/1                         29869      0 %
erlang:list_to_binary/1                        21195      0 %
mirror11:by_type/6                             7707       0 %
lists:foreach/2                                7708       0 %
ets:lookup/2                                   21195      0 %
mirror11:log_debug/2                           6748       0 %
file:write_file_info/2                         7225       0 %
ets:insert/2                                   7707       0 %
mirror11:do_dir/3                              481        0 %
mirror11:'-do_dir/3-fun-5-'/4                  6744       0 %
file:copy/2                                    6744       0 %
mirror11:start_dir_workers/5                   963        0 %
ets:delete/1                                   481        0 %
file:list_dir/1                                962        0 %
mirror11:rendezvous/1                          963        0 %
erlang:apply/2                                 481        0 %
erlang:spawn/3                                 481        0 %
file:make_dir/1                                481        0 %
ets:new/2                                      481        0 %
erlang:spawn/1                                 481        0 %
mirror11:'-start_dir_workers/5-fun-0-'/3       481        0 %
mirror11:do_symlink/4                          2          0 %
mirror11:master_loop/0                         1          0 %
file:read_link/1                               4          0 %
file:make_symlink/2                            2          0 %
mirror11:'-do_dir/3-fun-6-'/4                  2          0 %

Total time: 51.30
Measurement overhead: 13.48
ok
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