Re: [HEADS-UP] Rawhide: /tmp is now on tmpfs

[Jim Meyering]

Pádraig Brady wrote:
> On 06/01/2012 02:13 PM, Jim Meyering wrote:
>> Pádraig Brady wrote:
>>> It seems like we should default to /var/tmp in sort(1) and tac(1),
>>> as debian and fedora at least are probably moving to tmpfs for /tmp.
>>> I'll monitor the situation a bit before making the change.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Just to be clear, sort would continue to honor $TMPDIR, and
>> your suggested change would affect only those rare uses of sort
>> for which $TMPDIR is not already set?
>
> TMPDIR is not normally set in my experience.
> It can be set to override the default.

Oh, you're right: unset TMPDIR is probably not rare at all.
I've been setting it myself for so long...

> If it was normally set to point to tmpfs,
> then we couldn't really use it, but I
> don't think this is the case.
>
>> i.e., in sort.c,
>>
>>   -# define DEFAULT_TMPDIR "/tmp"
>>   +# define DEFAULT_TMPDIR "/var/tmp"
>
> Right.

Good.  That should be fine.
Anyone who is using sort on very large data sets must already deal
with disk space via manually-set TMPDIR or an explicit -T option.

However, I'm sure some people have /tmp deliberately large
(and much larger than /var/tmp) for precisely this use case, and
would not be pleased.  But if those same people upgrade to Fedora 18
they will adapt (simple, manual config) so that /tmp remains disk-backed
with whatever size they require.