On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 4:32 AM, Mauro Santos <registo.mailling@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 25-11-2011 07:46, C Anthony Risinger wrote: >> >> ... however, i would consider it a bug for applications to >> store *very* large files (exceeding 50-100M or so) in /tmp -- /var/tmp >> would be more appropriate, even for ephemeral/transient files -- idk > > Just out of curiosity, why do you say that? Is it a good practice rule > or something like that? i'm not sure about the best-practice aspect, but it's what i do at least ... reasoning being /var/tmp is more likely to be backed by permanent storage (read: larger), and since it's more "persistent-ish" than /tmp, there's a better chance it'll still be there if my program were to terminate early/crash/etc. i suppose if i have to work with that much data, i'd rather not have to re-extract/re-compute/re-<whatever> if the app chokes early. i don't know if thats a sound reason (FHS doesn't specify relative sizing, or set any size expectations at all), but this tend to hold in practice. in my mind, /tmp is for rapid processing of data in chunks (eg, like a buffer), and should be cleared often by your app as it works -- /var/tmp can hold the entire dataset if need be. ... data must still be throwaway in the end. ultimately, if you *really* want data to stick around, and it *really* is important ... then don't let the only copy of it lie around in a directory called "tmp" :-) ... use your app's /var/lib instead. -- C Anthony
