Create new files as sparse on NT systems. (2nd try)

Christopher Faylor cgf@redhat.com
Wed Feb 19 17:57:00 GMT 2003


On Wed, Feb 19, 2003 at 10:39:17AM -0500, Joe Buehler wrote:
>Christopher Faylor wrote:
>
>>>Because it runs as Cygwin app which is Unix-like environment.  There is
>>>no way to set files sparse in Unix because all files are sparse if the
>>>file systems supports it.
>>
>>...which is, coincidentally enough, why I was interested in the patch.
>
>It seems like a win to me -- UNIX files are always sparse by default: if you
>seek to a location and write, blocks are filled in only at the location of
>the write.
>
>One thing to investigate would be what happens when Windows trys to mmap()
>a sparse file.  It doesn't bother a UNIX box, but Windows?  Perhaps that
>is what BitTorrent is presently doing?

Hmm.  Good point.  Does some brave soul want to apply the patch and do some
experimenting?

cgf



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