David Woodhouse wrote:

eli.carter@inet.com said:

quoted

Could you elaborate on the difference between what you want to do and
sparse files?

No difference. Given a non-sparse file, I want a way to make it sparse.

Well, I _have_ a way to make it sparse; all I have to do is write out a
single log entry. What I am lacking is a way for the user to tell me to do
so :)

I'm aware that you can do this by deleting the file and writing out a new
copy. But this is flash and it has a limited number of write cycles; I don't
want to do that.

(No answers, just questions... ;) )

On a compressed fs like jffs2, wouldn't a block of 0's compress down to 
next-to-nothing already?

Can the fs recognize a big block of 0's and make it sparse on-the-fly 
without needing the user to specify it?  (On block-based fs's, that 
might not always be desirable due to out-of-space errors on modifying a 
file, but for a compressed fs, that's not a new issue.)

(Hmm.... If I'm missing something obvious, clue-by-four me and I'll go 
away. ;) )

Eli
--------------------. "If it ain't broke now,
Eli Carter           \                  it will be soon." -- crypto-gram
eli.carter(a)inet.com `-------------------------------------------------