From: Matthias Schniedermeyer Subject: Re: sparsify - utility to punch out blocks of 0s in a file Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2012 18:23:02 +0100 Message-ID: <20120205172302.GA7057@citd.de> References: <4F2D8F30.3090802@redhat.com> <201202050933.q159XQpB026380@helium.internal.tigress.co.uk> <4F2EB017.5090006@redhat.com> <9C5B5C07-B0E4-4D13-BCFE-7F35162DF5E8@dilger.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Eric Sandeen , "linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org" , Ron Yorston , "xfs@oss.sgi.com" To: Andreas Dilger Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <9C5B5C07-B0E4-4D13-BCFE-7F35162DF5E8@dilger.ca> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: xfs-bounces@oss.sgi.com Errors-To: xfs-bounces@oss.sgi.com List-Id: linux-ext4.vger.kernel.org On 05.02.2012 09:55, Andreas Dilger wrote: > > Matthias' suggestion of adding SEEK_HOLE/SEEK_DATA makes very good sense too. > > I thought about this, but if SEEK_HOLE/SEEK_DATA (or FIEMAP) worked, then the file would already be sparse, so I don't think that will help in this case... With that argumentation you wouldn't need the tool in the first place. "How can a bunch of zeros be in a file in the first place?" "Can only be because of the deficiency of another program." And who is to say that you wouldn't want to repeat such a thing from time to time, without SEEK_HOLE/SEEK_DATE you MAY crunch through big regions of zeros for no gain at all. Bis denn -- Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No, the Real Programmer wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor -- complicated, cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous. _______________________________________________ xfs mailing list xfs@oss.sgi.com http://oss.sgi.com/mailman/listinfo/xfs