On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:39:45 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:20:08 -0500, Alain wrote:
>> 
>>> Ever heard of "sparse" files?
>> 
>> Yes.  Old hand at NetWare; didn't know that Windows filesystems
>> supported sparse files.
> 
> Yah, it does. Well, NTFS does, at least. Indeed, fundamental parts of
> the system (like the USN journal) rely on the fact that you can delete
> blocks off the start of a file and recover the space used therein.
> 
> Unlike UNIX, it's not just a matter of seeking around. You have to open
> the file as a sparse file, then you have to say "hey, this area is
> sparse" rather than (say) just writing all zeros to the blocks or
> something.

Ah, I see - learned something new today. :-)

Jim

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