Re: [HACKERS] Linux Largefile Support In Postgresql RPMS

On Tue, Aug 13, 2002 at 01:04:02PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> On a system where building with large-file support is reasonably
> standard, I agree that PG should be built that way too. Where it's
> not so standard, I agree with Andrew Sullivan's concerns ...

What do you mean by "standard"? That only some filesystems are supported?
In Linux the vfat filesystem doesn't support largefiles, so the behaviour
is the same as if the application didn't specify O_LARGEFILE to open(2):
As Helge Bahmann pointed out, "kernel will refuse to write files larger than
2GB". In current Linux, a signal (SIGXFSZ) is sent to the application
that then dumps core.

So, the use of O_LARGEFILE is nullified by the lack of support by the
filesystem, but no problem is introduced by the application supporting
largefiles, it already existed before.

All the crashes and problems presented on these lists occur when largefile
support isn't compiled, I didn't see one occuring from any application
having the support, but not the filesystem. (Your "not so standard
support"?)

The changes to postgresql doesn't seem complicated, I can try to make them
myself (fcntl on stdout, stdin; add check to autoconf; etc.) if no one
else volunteers.

Regards,
Luciano Rocha

--
Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.