Les Mikesell wrote:
> A better question is why is there still anything with a 2 gig file
> size limit? Or why was there ever one in Linux, given that unix
> should have already been going through the pain of conversion by the
> time Linux distributions were being built?
When Linux distributions were first being built, the filesystem had a
64 MB limit. That's for the entire filesystem...
As for why there are still 2 gig limits -- for one thing, if you're
going to memory map a file, and use memory operations to read and write
the file, and you're using a 32 bit computer, then the 2 gig limit comes
with the territory. Memory-mapping files is a very useful technique,
and using 64-bit file accesses is inherently much slower on a 32 bit
processor (and it matters with memory-mapped files).
The other main reason (and the one I suspect applies here) is that it's
not considered worth the complexity: not worth paying the real price of
extra complexity to be able to handle large files to get the theoretical
benefit of having log files over 2 GB on 32 bit systems.
James.
--
E-mail: james@ | Legacy (adj): an uncomplimentary computer-industry
aprilcottage.co.uk | epithet that means 'it works'.
| -- Anthony DeBoer
