From: Martin Weber <Ephaeton@...>
Date: 2004-03-25T06:25:43+09:00
Subject: Re: File.stat.size errors with file sizes over 2Gigs.

On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 05:48:26AM +0900, walter@mwsewall.com wrote:
> File.stat('file_name').size returns erroneous file sizes when the 
> files are over 2 Gigs in size (at which point the number wraps around 
> and becomes negative).  Is this an expected limitation or a bug?
> 
> I am using the Pragmatic Programmers 1.8.1-11 build on a windows 2000 
> machine.

I'm not sure about windows, but on unix[1] the file size usually is an
off_t, which is a signed value[2], and traditionally was 32bit (i.e. +/- 2Gig).

Following, some unices (namely solaris comes to mind) offered 'large file
versions' of many of their calls, others (e.g. BSDs) just switched to a
signed 64 bit value for off_t. I think the latter is called for in the windows
compat layer (as I assume there is one, implementing stat) to really solve your
problem.

[1] -- in stat(2)'s struct stat that is
[2] -- to seek(2) backwards

Regards,

-Martin