Comments on: Invoking FoF with WGET http://gfmorris.com/2004/10/29/invoking-fof-with-wget/ The Life and Times of Geof F. Morris Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:52:32 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Jeff http://gfmorris.com/2004/10/29/invoking-fof-with-wget/comment-page-1/#comment-3536 Jeff Sat, 30 Oct 2004 14:34:19 +0000 http://ijsm.org/archives/2004/10/29/invoking-fof-with-wget/#comment-3536 While it's true that the "update-quiet.php" script is grabbing files, it does that the same way no matter how it's called. As far as the web server is concerned, there shouldn't be any difference between using GET and wget. Both produce the same result: sending a single HTTP GET command to the web server. From there, it's the web server, not GET or wget, that does the work in grabbing the feeds. What wget is doing is saving the output from the webserver (the output of update-quiet.php, which is nothing) to a file. That's one problem with using wget here: you end up with a pile of empty "update-quiet.php.[rotated integer]" files saved to your home directory. That being said, it's interesting that you saw a difference in speed between the two. I just tried it myself (by running each one multiple times). From what I saw, any difference between using GET and wget was completely swallowed by the variable delay encountered by the web server as it tried to fetch the feed data. In other words, in a horse race, either one of them might win, depending on how long it took the web server to fetch the data on that particular run. While it’s true that the “update-quiet.php” script is grabbing files, it does that the same way no matter how it’s called. As far as the web server is concerned, there shouldn’t be any difference between using GET and wget. Both produce the same result: sending a single HTTP GET command to the web server. From there, it’s the web server, not GET or wget, that does the work in grabbing the feeds. What wget is doing is saving the output from the webserver (the output of update-quiet.php, which is nothing) to a file. That’s one problem with using wget here: you end up with a pile of empty “update-quiet.php.[rotated integer]” files saved to your home directory.

That being said, it’s interesting that you saw a difference in speed between the two. I just tried it myself (by running each one multiple times). From what I saw, any difference between using GET and wget was completely swallowed by the variable delay encountered by the web server as it tried to fetch the feed data. In other words, in a horse race, either one of them might win, depending on how long it took the web server to fetch the data on that particular run.

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