"Randall S. Becker" <rsbecker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> My second attempt was to create the generate_zero_bytes function to replace
> exactly what the second dd was doing but not user /dev/zero.
Yes, and I think the patch does that ;-) It was just the original
dd if=/dev/zero of=... bs=1 seek=$there count=$this_many
would have been impossible to rewrite with the new generate_zero_bytes
helper unless $there weren't seeking to the end of the file.
But the other dd before the one the patch rewrites truncates the
file to make that seek=$there seeking to the end of the file, so
simply appending output from genereate_zero_bytes is sufficient and
correct conversion. I wanted to explain that for future readers who
may wonder if the patch is doing the exact conversion.
