Re: [Lynx-dev] File size limitation problem.

[Thomas Dickey]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 address@hidden wrote:

> 'ncftp' on the same system downloaded it just fine, however.  Lynx also 
> reported an unknown file size when it transferred.  The file size is 3.03 GB 
> and other clients report it correctly - with the exception of browsers that 
> seem to not be able to download it, either reporting it as nothing or a 
> negative number.

lynx doesn't (yet) support large files (sizes bigger than 2^31 are likely
to be a problem).  As you note, not all browsers support large files.

There's a Redhat bug-report about this; so I had it in my to-do list
(which is very long ;-)

> I'm guessing that Lynx sees the integer, interprets it as "negative," and 
> ignores it.  I have no clue in reality, however, because IANAP, and have no 
> clue where to even *begin* to try to figure out what's wrong with this 
> situation.
>
> The system is Linux 2.6.10, using the ext3 file system.  As far as I can 
> gather from reading the size limit is 2 terabytes, however I only tested with 
> 'dd' up to 7 GB.

Some applications don't bother keeping track of the filesize - those work
without many changes. Others have to be modified to use a larger data type
to store the size, e.g., to know when to stop reading.

--
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net