Re: adding linux syscall fallocate

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> All you need is a second magic block number.  Block number zero is
>> already reserved for holes.  Making, say, block number 1, or -1, or
>> some such, reserved to represent "block-of-zeros semantics for which
>> all backing data has been accounted as allocated", so that writing
>> such a block is guaranteed to have space available?
> If youâ??re using a single magic block number for â??allocated, but uninitia$

You allocate a block then (the allocation routine needs to take a flag
indicating whether you're allocating to replace a zero-but-reserved
block).  If none are available, the filesystem is corrupt.  The
blocks-free overhead figure gets redefined to "free block count minus
zero-but-reserved block count".

> Indirect blocks don't really complicated things much at all ... they would c$

You could do that.  Creating a large hole would cost you the time to
allocate and initialize the indirect blocks, but I suppose that's a
factor of the block size smaller than the time it would take to
allocate and initialize all the data blocks, so it would probably be a
win, albeit not as much of a win as not allocating-and-filling any of
it.

I was imagining that a zero-but-reserved indirect block would be
treated as representing not a block full of zeros but a block full of
the zero-but-reserved magic value.

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