Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help@cygwin.com; run by ezmlm List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin@cygwin.com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin@cygwin.com Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 18:41:23 +0200 From: Corinna Vinschen To: cygwin@cygwin.com Subject: Re: Sparse file criteria malfunction - binutils produces sparse .exe & .dll files Message-ID: <20030605164123.GB875@cygbert.vinschen.de> Reply-To: cygwin@cygwin.com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin@cygwin.com References: <20030605160847.GZ875@cygbert.vinschen.de> <006901c32b7f$0d7cceb0$78d96f83@pomello> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <006901c32b7f$0d7cceb0$78d96f83@pomello> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i On Thu, Jun 05, 2003 at 05:25:18PM +0100, Max Bowsher wrote: > I threw together a horrible C program to ask Windows whether a file was > sparse. .exe and .dll files made with a 1.5.0 Cygwin are. I haven't posted > the test program, because it is too messy. > [...] > I give proof that dll/exe files are being created sparse above. Uhm... > Do you mean proof that sparseness of .exe files is harmful? > Data has already been posted by me and others showing that sparse files > consume excess disc space. It does if it's used for files smaller than 128K. That's probably an argument to sparsify a file only if the lseek hole is >= 128K but it's not an argument against sparse files at all. I'm perfectly happy with changing this from 64K to 128K, ok? > a sparse file - I have no test data, but since sparseness gains me nothing, > and might lose me something, I dont like it._ That's a good argument. I'm speechless. > So, the point is, for the majority of users, sparseness gains nothing, and > can have undesirable effects. > Therefore, I really think it should be off by default. We're now on the path of opinion. My opinion is to drop 9x/Me support entirely from Cygwin since it just requires ugly hacks in the code. But that's not actually an argument to do it in reality. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Developer mailto:cygwin@cygwin.com Red Hat, Inc. -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/