Re: 2G file size limitation question

Albert D. Cahalan (acahalan@cs.uml.edu)
Sat, 10 Jan 1998 23:56:53 -0500 (EST)

>> __u32 i_block[EXT2_N_BLOCKS];/* Pointers to blocks */
>> __u32 i_version; /* File version (for NFS) */
>> __u32 i_file_acl; /* File ACL */
>> union {
>> __u32 i_dir_acl; /* Directory ACL */
>> __u32 i_size_high; /* high 32 bits of 64-bit size */
>> } u2;
>> __u32 i_reserved1;
>> __u16 i_reserved2;
>
> So one can choose either ACLs or 64bit sizes? That's very bad...

Nope, it means _directories_ can't be larger than 4 GB.
Hundreds of millions of files in one directory is not practical
anyway, since searches are linear.

The i_file_acl is not inside the union.

>> /*
>> * In case people like incompatible change...
>> * This is cleaner but maybe not worth the trouble.
>> */
>> struct ext3_inode {
>> __u16 i_mode; /* File mode */
>> __u16 i_version; /* File version (for NFS) */
>> __u32 i_flags; /* File flags */
>> __u32 i_gid; /* Group Id */
>> __u32 i_uid; /* Owner Uid */
>> __u32 i_atime; /* Access time (damn POSIX) */
> If you do this, then several fields should be upgraded, like a/m/ctime to
> __u64, etc.

Since it is not in the standard API, there is not much reason
to waste the space. There are more important things.