Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!noao!ncar!midway!gsbsun!valley From: valley@gsbsun.uchicago.edu (Doug Dougherty) Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.apps Subject: Re: deskview question Message-ID: <1991Apr18.162953.19774@midway.uchicago.edu> Date: 18 Apr 91 16:29:53 GMT References: Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (NewsMistress) Organization: University of Chicago Lines: 25 er1m+@andrew.cmu.edu (Ethan J. Rasiel) writes: >I'm sorry if this question is too simple, but it has been puzzling me >for some time. >Say I open 2 deskview windows, and start downloading a file in one of the them. >Then I switch to the other window. The file that is downloading appears as a 0 >length file regardless of how much has been actually downloaded. If I >do a dir, >I assume that the amount of free space dos reports is therefore wrong, >since dos >isn't accounting for the file that is not fully downloaded yet. I >assume this happens >because deskview doesn't allocate the clusters for the file until it is >finished writing >the file. So, what prevents me from writing to the same area from the other >window? I hope this makes sense! Actually, what is happening is that DOS *is* allocating the clusters and yes, your free space should be decreasing (in successive DIR's) even though the filesize remains zero until the very end. This is because DOS does allocate the clusters as needed, but doesn't update the size entry in the directory until it closes the file. -- (Another fine mess brought to you by valley@gsbsun.uchicago.edu)