Matej Cepl wrote: > On 2009-02-06, 23:37 GMT, Pádraig Brady wrote: >> Rather than creating a new utility, prehaps a --preallocate >> option to the existing truncate utility would be better? >> Especially considering you added a --sparse option to mkfile >> which does much the same thing (although not allowing shrinking?). > > Well, my primary inspiration for writing mkfile (long time before > there was any fallocate in the kernel) was that this utility is > common on other Unices > (http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/816-0211/6m6nc670c?a=view,
For me the functionality of the tool without fallocate is not interesting, since it's equivalent to `dd if=/dev/zero ... of=file`. Perhaps Jim's idea of having a contrib directory would be appropriate for this? I.E. have a mkfile script that does `truncate --preallocate && chmod u+t "$1"` > http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages\ > /man8/mkfile.8.html, > http://www.freebsdsoftware.org/sysutils/mkfile.html) Note `mkfile` is only available in freebsd ports, while `truncate` is available in freebsd core. For Darwin this is reversed. Here's a list of mkfile's availability on various systems: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/unix/m/mkfile.html > so I wanted to have it on Linux as well. Introduction of fallocate just > introduced additional incentive to complete mkfile and post it here. fallocate is interesting in its own right, and would be an appropriate option to add to `truncate` I think. > So, I wouldn't mind if for rexample renaming truncate to mkfile > (I think there is a value in using commonly shared names for Unix > utilities rather than calling them by name of a system call; It wasn't called after the system call. It was called after the function it was providing. mkfile isn't the best name either BTW. Also the existing `truncate` command in freebsd which swayed the choice of name. cheers, Pádraig. _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
