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From: m5@lynx.uucp (Mike McNally)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: unix question: files per directory
Keywords: how many can there be?
Message-ID: <5432@lynx.UUCP>
Date: 12 Apr 89 14:48:25 GMT
References: <24110@beta.lanl.gov> <8420@xanth.cs.odu.edu>
Reply-To: m5@lynx.UUCP (Mike McNally)
Distribution: na
Organization: Lynx Real-Time Systems Inc, Campbell CA
Lines: 19

In article <8420@xanth.cs.odu.edu> kremer@cs.odu.edu (Lloyd Kremer) writes:
>Why was it decided that off_t should be signed?  . . .
>And it doesn't make sense to have a negative offset into a file . . .

Except when performing relative seeks:

    newpos = lseek(fd, (off_t) distance, L_INCR);

I suppose one could create a new type for this purpose, and iterate to
traverse distances greater than 2GB.

Of course, an implementation with 64-bit longs would probably stave off
these complaints for quite some time.

-- 
Mike McNally                                    Lynx Real-Time Systems
uucp: {voder,athsys}!lynx!m5                    phone: 408 370 2233

            Where equal mind and contest equal, go.