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