Re: When a hashed pathname is deleted, search PATH

[Reuben Thomas]

On 17 March 2014 14:12, Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu> wrote:

> On 3/15/14 2:44 PM, Reuben Thomas wrote:
> > On 15 March 2014 18:23, Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu
> > <mailto:chet.ramey@case.edu>> wrote:
> >
> >     It's not been a problem, really.  The existence of the `checkhash'
> option
> >     has been enough.  How often do you remove binaries in directories in
> $PATH?
> >
> >
> > Fairly often: I frequently rename or retire scripts in my per-user bin
> > directory.
>
> OK.  Based on the number of reports in the last few years, you are in the
> minority.
>

It's a minor annoyance, I bet a lot of users just live with it. I'm an
inveterate reporter of minor annoyances, and even I took many years to
report this problem. To my mind that doesn't indicate it shouldn't be
fixed: minor annoyances can easily be "rounded down" to zero, but the total
pain can still be large.

Only the minor performance hit it would extract on every command lookup.
>

I don't understand, surely it only has a performance impact when a hashed
file or a directory on PATH is (re)moved?

How about removing both pain *and* complexity: I'd happily prepare a patch
to make checkhash always on, remove its documentation, but of course keep
the option name supported for backwards compatibility. Then no-one ever
need think about it again.

Failing that, I'd also happily prepare a patch to simply switch the default
to on.

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