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

[Christopher Faylor <cgf at redhat dot com>]

On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 10:21:26PM -0000, Max Bowsher wrote:
>Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 10:08:56PM -0000, Max Bowsher wrote:
>>> Two things - First:
>>>
>>> Please, please don't make this the default! Once a file is
>>> sparsified, it cannot be unsparsified except by copying the contents
>>> to a new file! This seems like an optimization for a corner case is
>>> trying to cause a global change.
>>
>> Why is it a big deal if a file is sparse?  I don't get it.  In 99% of
>> the cases this won't be a big deal.  In the cases where it is a big
>> deal, cygwin will be operating more like UNIX.
>
>Mainly, it feels aesthetically horrible to me.
>
>And, we don't have any benchmarks for the common case, yet.
>
>What kind of program would actually benefit from sparse files? And shouldn't
>it be the responsibility of that program to request them?

IIRC, linux creates sparse files automatically when you do an lseek to
a position beyond EOF.  I believe that Windows is similar.

I would like to see a benchmark but I doubt there will be any noticeable
difference.

cgf