On Jul 15, 2013 5:51 PM, "Lennart Poettering" <mzerq...@0pointer.de> wrote: > > On Tue, 16.07.13 09:13, Dan Fruehauf (malko...@gmail.com) wrote: > > > > Well, there are certain things on Unix that are text files and many > > > things that are not. Binary log files have a long tradition on Unix, for > > > example in wtmp and utmp. We have binary files in /etc, and everywhere > > > else. > > > > > And the reason for that being? I have no idea either, it's probably too old > > to be dug. Howver yes, I'd like these to be text based as well. > > Oh, the reasons are pretty well-known for those cases. For example > wtmp/utmp is binary so that utmp works nicely as sparse file and the > entries may be accessed using the UID number as seek index (multipled by > the fixed entry size). So, it's about indexing, exactly as for journal > files. The Unix guys back then chose binary when it made sense for their > immediate technical requirements. And for us it's the exact same.
I don't believe that was the reason, since when utmp was invented, Unix had 16-bit UIDs and did not have sparse files. On the other hand, I don't know the actual reason. Eric
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