Re: Is there a "make hole" (truncate in middle) syscall?

Rob Landley
2003-12-12T21:40:28Z

On Friday 12 December 2003 08:24, Jörn Engel wrote:

> > ...and it sucks. Same problem as with updatedb - 99% of all work is
> > bogus, but you don't know which 99%, because the one knowing about it,
> > the kernel, doesn't tell you a thing.
>
> Actually, updatedb sucks even worse. The database is notoriously
> outdated and each run of updatedb has the effect of flushing the
> cache. Because of the cache-flushing effect, you cannot even run it
> with maximum niceness. Running it still hurts you *afterwards*.
>
> Same goes for you userland daemon without kernel support.
>
> Jörn

1) The date optimization, only looking at files newer than the last run, means
you can avoid looking at 90% of the filesystem.

2) If drop-behind ever gets working, life is good for this sort of thing. If
not, there's always O_DIRECT or its replacement (whatever Linus and the
oracle guy were arguing about last month)...

Rob