Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!mcsun!ukc!icdoc!sot-ecs!tjc
From: tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Tim Chown)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Can directory files have holes in them ?
Summary: holes
Message-ID: <442@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Oct 89 14:40:40 GMT
References: <1212@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Organization: University of Southampton, UK
Lines: 29

In article <1212@accuvax.nwu.edu>, naim@accuvax.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah (CSRL)) writes:
> In 4.3bsd, is it possible for a directory file to have holes in it ?

Sure is.  Here's an example with the nrsdbm files that are commonly
used in the UK as an online database of mail/ftp sites:

tjc40% ls -l
total 4164
-rw-r--r--  1 root       549740 Oct  5 14:41 DBM1
-rw-r--r--  1 root       544304 Oct  5 14:26 DBM1~
-rw-r--r--  1 root       766931 Oct  5 14:22 DERFIL2
-rw-r--r--  1 root       761268 Oct  5 14:22 DERFIL2~
-rw-r--r--  1 root          568 Sep  5 16:51 UAIEF
-rw-r--r--  1 root          196 Jun  6 16:37 UAIEF~
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root        49152 Jan 25  1989 dbencode
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root        49152 Jan 25  1989 dbpatch
drwxr-xr-x  3 root          512 Jan 25  1989 maint
drwxr-xr-x  2 root          512 Jan 25  1989 newcomms
-rw-r--r--  1 root         8192 Oct  5 14:48 nrsdbm.dir
-rw-r--r--  1 root      3552256 Oct  5 14:48 nrsdbm.pag
tjc41% du
188     ./maint/patch
189     ./maint
1674    ./newcomms
6026    .

More holes than filling, it seems.  (This is on a Sun 3, 4.3BSD)

Tim.