with or without `head' (was Re: auto_ -> auto. in init script)

[Scott McDermott]

H. Peter Anvin on Wed  8/03 00:57 -0800:
> > This `head' stuff is really silly !  One step up from the now boring
> > `useless use of cat'.
> 
> Someone seems to believe the "head" allows the command to return
> earlier.

That was me.  Is this an erroneous assumption? I presented it to speed
up the command on a large map.

        [mcdermot@diethylamide /tmp]$ time head ~/mail/mbox | wc -l
        0.01 user 0.00 system 0:00.01 elapsed 83% CPU
             10
        [mcdermot@diethylamide /tmp]$ time wc -l ~/mail/mbox
         271567 /home/mcdermot/mail/mbox
        0.17 user 0.20 system 0:03.38 elapsed 10% CPU

        (pretty formatted)

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