From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Marco Stornelli Subject: Re: [PATCH] xfstests 255: add a seek_data/seek_hole tester Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:30:32 +0200 Message-ID: <4E58AB28.1080009@gmail.com> References: <1309275199-10801-1-git-send-email-josef@redhat.com> <1309275199-10801-5-git-send-email-josef@redhat.com> <20110825060632.GA9933@infradead.org> <20110825064039.GO3162@dastard> <0A267E55-7772-438D-B6A7-89B73020F311@dilger.ca> <20110826013528.GW3162@dastard> <20110826144124.GA17519@lulu.zabbo.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Cc: Dave Chinner , Andreas Dilger , Christoph Hellwig , Josef Bacik , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-btrfs@vger.kernel.org, xfs@oss.sgi.com, viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk, dchinner@redhat.com To: Zach Brown Return-path: In-Reply-To: <20110826144124.GA17519@lulu.zabbo.net> List-ID: Il 26/08/2011 16:41, Zach Brown ha scritto: >>> Hole: a range of the file that contains no data or is made up >>> entirely of NULL (zero) data. Holes include preallocated ranges of >>> files that have not had actual data written to them. > >> No for me. A hole is made up of zero data? It's a strange definition >> for me. > > It's a very natural definition for me. It mirrors the behaviour of > read() of sparse data inside i_size that file system authors already > have to consider. > > It's also a reminder for people that this interface is about avoiding > reading zeros. Systems that track contents can do this for files that > had tons of zeros written. The data is there but the app is > specifically asking us to skip it by using SEEK_DATA. > > - z > I think we need to consider a hole and "data not present/not written yet" as two different cases even they are related. For example, if I do an fallocate without keep size option, then I do a read, I have the same behavior of sparse data inside i_size, but the blocks are allocated so no sparse data in this case. Simply there are no difference from app point of view. Marco