Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!bpa!cbmvax!ag
From: ag@cbmvax.commodore.com (Keith Gabryelski)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Reserving Space on Disk
Message-ID: <13247@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 17 Jul 90 03:03:49 GMT
References: <13212@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com>
Reply-To: ag@cbmvax (Keith Gabryelski)
Organization: Commodore-Amiga Unix; West Chester, PA
Lines: 13

In article <13212@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com> fnf@riscokid.UUCP (Fred Fish) writes:
>[...], I've always wondered why there wasn't a /dev/full as a
>standard part of unix.  It's the obvious counterpart of /dev/null, and
>simply returns as many null bytes as you ask for.  Then all you would
>have to do is:
>
>	dd if=/dev/full of=myfile bs=1k count=4k

On some of the latest forms of Unix (SVR4 which inherited it from
SunOS) there is a /dev/zero which does this.  It is used for mmap()ing
in the bss segment and ignoring null pointer problems :-).

Pax, Keith