From: Ron Yorston Subject: Re: sparsify - utility to punch out blocks of 0s in a file Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2012 09:33:26 +0000 Message-ID: <201202050933.q159XQpB026380@helium.internal.tigress.co.uk> References: <4F2D8F30.3090802@redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: xfs@oss.sgi.com, sandeen@redhat.com, linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from ip-87-86-166-5.easynet.co.uk ([87.86.166.5]:40148 "EHLO geotraceuk2.Geotrace.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751950Ab2BEJko (ORCPT ); Sun, 5 Feb 2012 04:40:44 -0500 In-Reply-To: <4F2D8F30.3090802@redhat.com> Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Eric Sandeen wrote: >Now that ext4, xfs, & ocfs2 can support punch hole, a tool to >"re-sparsify" a file by punching out ranges of 0s might be in order. > >I'll see if util-linux wants it after it gets beat into shape. >(or did a tool like this already exist and I missed it?) Way ahead of you. I wrote my sparsify utility for ext2 in 2004: http://intgat.tigress.co.uk/rmy/uml/sparsify.html It's mostly of historical interest now, I suppose. The sparsify utility doesn't work on ext4 and I long since gave up maintaining the kernel patch. I still use the zerofree utility, though. It would be nice to have a modern version of sparsify. I'll try it out. Ron