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Re: SPARSE files considered harmful - please revert
Bill C. Riemers wrote:
> Only executable files should be sparse files... Under Linux, the
executable
> bit is checked by cp. (Or at least this was true several years ago, when
I
> last looked at the code.) Only if the file is marked as executable is it
> possibly made sparse.
I haven't looked in the code, but there is absolutely no mention of this in
the man page.
> Granted sometimes you do have a data file which can be made sparse.
> However, unless you are familiar with the code used to read the file, this
> is very dangerous. So this should be decided on a case by case basis.
Um? By my understanding, making a file sparse can never be dangerous. It can
cause sub-optimal performance, but code reading the file doesn't have to be
aware of anything special - the OS takes care of it.
Max.
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