From: Greg Willits <lists@...>
Date: 2009-07-06T03:13:17+09:00
Subject: Re: file.seek and unused bytes

Gary Wright wrote:
> On Jul 3, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Greg Willits wrote:
>> So, my question is about those zeros. Does advancing the seek position
>> (do we still call that the "cursor"?) intentionally and proactively  
>> fill
>> the unsed bytes with what apparently equates to zero?
> 
> I don't think anyone has answered this question directly but on POSIX-
> like file systems a seek past the end of the file and a subsequent
> write will cause the intervening bytes (which have never been written)
> to read as zeros. Whether those 'holes' occupy disk space or not is
> implementation dependent.


If in deed this is a fact (and it's consistent with my observation), 
then I'd say it's worth taking advantage of. I can't find a definitive 
reference to cite though (Pickaxe, The Ruby Way).

-- gw
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