ls -l

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <21519 at adm.BRL.MIL> SIMSN%NUSDISCS.BITNET at cunyvm.cuny.edu writes:
> What could be the possible reasons that cause ls -l
> to be slow, i.e. one line at a time at 1 sec interval?

Having to look up user names to match the UIDs reported by stat().
This is typically done by a sequential scan of /etc/passwd for EACH
name.  If you have a large /etc/passwd it can be quite painful.

Better solutions have been implemented but I don't think we need
to discuss them in this newsgroup.