(Fwd) Re: DOSFS bug fixes, IDE drivers and sample released

[Victor V. Vengerov]

Angelo Fraietta wrote:

>
> I tried fflush (using fopen), without effect. 

fflush() flushes only buffers maintained inside the libc library.

The following quote is from fflush(3) Linux man page:
***
NOTES
       Note that fflush() only flushes the user space buffers provided 
by  the
       C  library.   To  ensure that the data is physically stored on 
disk the
       kernel buffers must be flushed too, e.g. with sync(2) or fsync(2).
***
It completely in sync with newlib fflush() implementation.

I agree, it is reasonable to flush buffers when file closed. People may
expect that data synchronized when file closed. Nevertheless, Linux
man page close(3) declares that:

***
NOTES
       ...
       A  successful  close does not guarantee that the data has been 
success-
       fully saved to disk, as the kernel defers writes. It is not 
common  for
       a  filesystem  to  flush  the buffers when the stream is closed. 
If you
       need to be sure that the data is physically stored use  
fsync(2).   (It
       will depend on the disk hardware at this point.)
***

I don't think that data synchronization on close() contradict to POSIX, but
it impacts on close() performance.

Any opinions?

Victor

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Victor V. Vengerov
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