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From: guy@gorodish.Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards,comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: File space allocation/deallocation under Unix (BSD4.x)
Message-ID: <60777@sun.uucp>
Date: 21 Jul 88 04:33:09 GMT
References: <292@anumb.UUCP> <298@hobbit.sci.kun.nl>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
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> I just looked at the directory /usr/spool/news/.rnews on our BSD 4.3 system,
> and it was only 512 bytes long, so there must be some space reclaiming going
> on (after a news problem 1500 articles were queued last week)

This is true.  4.3BSD will reclaim empty space at the end of a directory when
you create a new entry in the directory.  (One benefit of this, as you
discovered, is that it reclaims space in huge spool directories....)