Re: [Bug-tar] Tar short read

[Paul Eggert]

On 09/26/11 15:22, Kevin Fox wrote:
> I see a read of 8704 (10240 - the tar headers I'm assuming)
> then 3275 reads of 10240 bytes each,
> then the short read of 9728 (sums to exactly 32mb) then tar never issues
> another read on that descriptor.

POSIX says that short reads are allowed only near end-of-file,
or when signals arrive, or for pipes, FIFOs, and special files.
They are not allowed while reading in the middle of a regular file,
and if your file system exhibits short reads in that situation
it will likely break lots of programs.  I suggest fixing the
file system rather than putting workarounds into GNU tar and lots of
other programs.

Here's the POSIX citation:

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/read.html