Re: BTRFS file clone support for cp

[Giuseppe Scrivano]

Hi Jim,

Jim Meyering <address@hidden> writes:

> However, but what about cp's --sparse option?
> btrfs supports sparse files, so this new code will have to
> honor that.  The trouble is that there is currently no option
> to say "preserve precisely and only whatever holes are present
> in src", which is the behavior I would expect from that ioctl.

Yes, sparse files are maintained.

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=a bs=1 seek=200M count=0

$ stat a
  File: `a'
  Size: 209715200       Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   regular file
  ...

$ ./cp a b

$ stat b
  File: `b'
  Size: 209715200       Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   regular file
  ...

The special case to handle differently is --sparse=never.


> I am inclined to extend the definition of --sparse=auto (the default)
> to mean "make as faithful a copy as possible (btrfs clone), and failing
> that, use the sparse-preserving heuristic".  Then we can use the new
> ioctl in the default case.  The down side of such a move is that it would
> induce a subtle change in behavior: whereas before, a partially-sparse
> file would be copied (assuming btrfs FS src and dest) to a fully-sparse
> destination, now, you'll get a mirror image, partially-sparse copy.

Right, it will behave differently on different file systems.  What about
--sparse=always?


> But seeing as how btrfs is so new, there is little legacy to worry about.
> And besides, for a command whose job it to copy, a feature to permit
> more faithful copying is hard to turn down or relegate to non-default
> status.

Moreover the principal reason to use sparse files is to use less space
on the file system, a cloned partially-sparse file on btrfs takes less
space than a fully-sparse copied file.
IMHO use the btrfs clone method is to prefer in both cases:
--sparse=auto and --sparse=always.  I think that in any case,
considering a file system could not support sparse files, --sparse
should be considered just a "suggestion" and not mandatory, and the
final decision left to cp.

Regards,
Giuseppe