Re: Editing-in-place of a large file

[Larry McVoy]

> What's needed is a generalisation of sparse files and truncate().
> They both handle similar problems.

how about 

	fzero(int fd, off_t off, size_t len)

which zeros the blocks and if it can creates a holey file?

However, that's not what Bob wants, he wants to remove commercials from
recorded TV.  So what he wants is 

	fdelete(int fd, off_t off, size_t len)

which has the semantics of shifting the rest of the file backwards to "off".

The main problem with this is if the off/len are not block aligned.  If they
are, then this is just block twiddling, if they aren't, then this is a file
rewrite anyway.