Long time needed for "Building file list" Any suggestions ?

[Mark Thornton]

Clint Byrum wrote:

>This does bring up one point though. Is there any way to optimize file
>list building? It seems like that turns into a huge bottleneck in the
>"lots of files" situation.
>  
>
Only by having a process which continuously monitors the relevant 
directory trees to maintain a list of the changed files.
In the case of Windows perhaps using the ReadDirectoryChangesW method.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/fileio/base/readdirectorychangesw.asp?frame=true

Otherwise scanning a large directory tree for changes is unavoidably 
slow. (At least it is only quick if you have very recently scanned the 
same tree and thus have all the directory data cached in memory.)

Mark Thornton