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author | Jim Meyering <jim@meyering.net> | 2004-03-10 09:51:26 +0000 |
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committer | Jim Meyering <jim@meyering.net> | 2004-03-10 09:51:26 +0000 |
commit | ebbbe4553a4dbbe9308a046a4e154bc97b1887ac (patch) | |
tree | d4416176ff5c05cb51f9e2fa2900f12554cfedef /doc/coreutils.texi | |
parent | ae6f132503ca91f22c7c47c23d62a29e3814cdf4 (diff) | |
download | coreutils-ebbbe4553a4dbbe9308a046a4e154bc97b1887ac.tar.xz |
(cp invocation): Improve description of cp's --sparse=WHEN option.
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/coreutils.texi')
-rw-r--r-- | doc/coreutils.texi | 18 |
1 files changed, 13 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi index eebcb0088..caac0416d 100644 --- a/doc/coreutils.texi +++ b/doc/coreutils.texi @@ -6348,17 +6348,25 @@ reads these as zeroes. This can both save considerable disk space and increase speed, since many binary files contain lots of consecutive zero bytes. By default, @command{cp} detects holes in input source files via a crude heuristic and makes the corresponding output file sparse as well. +Only regular files may be sparse. The @var{when} value can be one of the following: @table @samp @item auto -The default behavior: the output file is sparse if the input file is sparse. +The default behavior: if the input file is sparse, attempt to make +the output file sparse, too. However, if an output file exists but +refers to a non-regular file, then do not attempt to make it sparse. @item always -Always make the output file sparse. This is useful when the input -file resides on a filesystem that does not support sparse files (the -most notable example is @samp{efs} filesystems in SGI IRIX 5.3 and -earlier), but the output file is on another type of filesystem. +For each sufficiently long sequence of zero bytes in the input file, +attempt to create a corresponding hole in the output file, even if the +input file does not appear to be sparse. +This is useful when the input file resides on a filesystem +that does not support sparse files +(for example, @samp{efs} filesystems in SGI IRIX 5.3 and earlier), +but the output file is on a type of filesystem that does support them. +Holes may be created only in regular files, so if the destination file +is of some other type, @command{cp} does not even try to make it sparse. @item never Never make the output file sparse. |