Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!oliveb!olivey!jerry
From: jerry@olivey.olivetti.com (Jerry Aguirre)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Truncating an open file under BSD 4.3
Keywords: Empty, !ftruncate, fcntl?
Message-ID: <26556@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 2 Aug 88 19:50:24 GMT
References: <1392@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu> <12684@mimsy.UUCP>
Sender: news@oliveb.olivetti.com
Reply-To: jerry@olivey.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre)
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 15

In article <12684@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
>
>	open
>	write (moves seek pointer)
>	ftruncate
>	write
>
>will create holes, since the second `write' is not at the beginning

What is interesting is that even if the open file has been placed in
FAPPEND mode there will still be holes.  I view this as a bug.  FAPPEND
is defined as possitioning each write at the end of the file, even if
some other process has changed where the end is located.  Certainly
truncating a file to zero length should be considered changing where the
file ends.
					Jerry Aguirre