From: jan grant 
Subject: Re: NetWare files are growning up to 4gb!
Date: 1998/11/09
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Bernd Dorfmueller wrote:

> a little file which has a maximum size of approx 4mb grows up to 4gb, but
> even we don�t have so much harddisk space.

Sounds like a sparse file. Is this file produced by a database package? If
so, it may have 'holes' in it (empty space filled with zeroes) due to
efficiency considerations.

This is nothing to worry about, unless you're using a naieve copy to shift
the file around with, in which case the zeroes may well all get expanded in
the target file.

jan
-- 
Bolstered by my success with vi, I proceeded to learn C with 'learn c'