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authorJim Meyering <meyering@redhat.com>2009-08-04 19:54:58 +0200
committerJim Meyering <meyering@redhat.com>2009-08-06 09:41:50 +0200
commit5929322ccb1f9d27c1b07b746d37419d17a7cbf6 (patch)
tree685ca3efe05ce619b33392ea499ad87c1c7a620c /doc
parent365fb90eaae52c92d6af8e87769e72b872492f4a (diff)
downloadcoreutils-5929322ccb1f9d27c1b07b746d37419d17a7cbf6.tar.xz
dd: work around buffer length restrictions with oflag=direct (O_DIRECT)
dd oflag=direct would fail to copy a file with size that is not a multiple of 512 (destination file system specific) * NEWS (Bug fixes): Mention it. * src/dd.c (iwrite): Turn off O_DIRECT for any smaller-than-obs-sized write. Don't bother to restore it. * tests/dd/direct: New test for the above. * tests/Makefile.am (TESTS): Add dd/direct. * doc/coreutils.texi (dd invocation): Mention oflag=direct buffer size restriction. Details in http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.coreutils.bugs/17586 Reported by Eric Sandeen.
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
-rw-r--r--doc/coreutils.texi4
1 files changed, 4 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index acec76e4c..90a54b268 100644
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -7861,6 +7861,10 @@ same time.
@opindex direct
@cindex direct I/O
Use direct I/O for data, avoiding the buffer cache.
+Note that the kernel may impose restrictions on read or write buffer sizes.
+For example, with an ext4 destination file system and a linux-based kernel,
+using @samp{oflag=direct} will cause writes to fail with @code{EINVAL} if the
+output buffer size is not a multiple of 512.
@item directory
@opindex directory