From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Eli Carter Subject: Re: File perforation. Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 16:28:56 -0600 Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <3E1CA628.7000002@inet.com> References: <21551.1042063560@passion.cambridge.redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from tex.inetint.com (tex [172.16.99.35]) by zeke.inet.com (8.12.1/8.12.1) with ESMTP id h08MSwSt001170 for ; Wed, 8 Jan 2003 16:28:58 -0600 (CST) Received: from harpo.inetint.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by tex.inetint.com (8.12.1/8.12.1) with ESMTP id h08MSur2012189 for ; Wed, 8 Jan 2003 16:28:57 -0600 (CST) To: David Woodhouse List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org David Woodhouse wrote: > I keep receiving requests from users to allow space saving by making holes > in files. For people using JFFS2, a compressed file system designed for use > on fairly small solid state storage devices, this is a fairly reasonable > request, and it's also fairly simple to implement. It's only the interface > I'm concerned about. > > I've been resisting these requests because I really don't want to do it > with an ioctl on the file. Only if we can have a generic sys_perforate() > would I really want to do it. > > Apparently it's hard to implement on block-based file systems. I don't > really care about that though -- just falling back to writing zeroes to the > offending range (or indeed returning -EINVAL) would be perfectly sufficient > until/unless it gets implemented for other file systems. All I want is an > interface that doesn't make me feel dirty :) > > Comments? Could you elaborate on the difference between what you want to do and sparse files? Eli --------------------. "If it ain't broke now, Eli Carter \ it will be soon." -- crypto-gram eli.carter(a)inet.com `-------------------------------------------------