Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!hsdndev!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd
From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals
Subject: Re: How do you find the symbolic links to files.
Message-ID: <6343:Dec618:53:5390@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 6 Dec 90 18:53:53 GMT
References: <1990Dec5.052124.28435@erg.sri.com> <10960:Dec507:07:4190@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <JGREELY.90Dec5134716@morganucodon.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: IR
Lines: 18

In article <JGREELY.90Dec5134716@morganucodon.cis.ohio-state.edu> J Greely <jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
> In article <10960:Dec507:07:4190@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
>  brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
> >Hardly. You just look at the file size. Other than the file size, there
> >is no way a portable program can tell the difference between a hole and
> >an allocated block of zeros.
> That only works if 1) stat returns the number of blocks,

That's what st_blocks is for.

> and 2) statfs
> (or its equivalent) returns the correct block size.

Which is what statfs is for, but who cares? The point is that an
application can depend on st_blocks for information. An archiver should
preserve that information.

---Dan