On 26/01/2015 23:52, Olivier Brunel wrote:
That looks good, except that I need a default value, in case the file doesn't exist. If there's a way to work a default value in that case then that'd be fine, yes. ...is there a way to add a default value if FILE doesn't exist?
I will add a "-D default" option to backtick, for when the subprocess exits nonzero. I've wanted this feature for some time, but only now realized that I wanted it. Thanks for helping me clarify my mind. :)
(re: misconfiguration, in what way though? It could lead to the program being triggered for each new line, but that doesn't mean uncontrollably spawning children?
Well, some services log a lot. Spawning a process for every new line can be really, really heavy. (And I don't even want to imagine how heavy it would be on Solaris.) I really don't mind forking and execing, as can be proven by execline; but potentially forking every time a daemon outputs a newline is still really scary. I need to find the right safety guards before I implement that.
It might be a lot, but with a rotation every 4096 bytes one might already have frequent calls to the processor, no?)
Sure, with s4096, but who limits their log files to 4k ? It requires specific configuration to do that; the admin really wanted it to happen, it's controlled. A daemon's output matching a given regexp - which could be .* - is a lot less predictable. And if the daemon is spewing nothing but newlines, you could find yourself forking 4096 times more than you're already doing with the processor... -- Laurent
