[quoting drastically curtailed. For context, see the archives]
> "C. Scott Ananian" <cananian@lcs.mit.edu> writes:
[...]
> > [Note that silly mmap implementations of (for example) cp may have
> > problems with zero-length files, as well. They would have the same
> > troubles with 'finite but wrong' sized files, except the bugs would be
> > much more subtle.]
> These implementations of cp are RIGHT. And no, we wouldn't have that
> problem with finite sized files, because you may NOT conclude that
> if you asked the size and later really read it, it will still have that
> size. Zero is special in that if you know the size, you know the full
> contents, which is not true for any other number, in all other cases the
> program HAS to read the contents to avoid a race.
!
I think you're missing my point. If /proc gave bogus values for the size,
instead of 0, then programs that rely on the size would *irregularly,
erratically, and unpredictably* give wrong results, depending on the
relationship of the real size to the reported size. It is not sane to
generate true sizes for the /proc files (we'd have to generate all the
contents, which is hardly efficient). Thus, a reported size of 0 is
preferable. That way, if you rely on reading the file size, you will
*always* get wrong results. This makes buggy programs obvious and
repeatable, which is much preferable to covering up the problem.
In this case, the NFS server that skips the read of a zero-byte file is
the buggy program, and the current implementation of /proc makes this
obvious.
--Scott
[to recap: we're not talking about 'special file sizes' -- we're talking
about repeatable behaviour.]
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C. Scott Ananian: cananian@lcs.mit.edu / Declare the Truth boldly and
Laboratory for Computer Science/Crypto / without hindrance.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology /META-PARRESIAS AKOLUTOS:Acts 28:31
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