Uwe Thiem wrote: > On 06 July 2006 10:27, Alexander Skwar wrote: >> Dirk Heinrichs wrote: >> > Yes. Open files are not overwritten, >> >> Uh? Open files *ARE* overwritten! That's Linux, not Windows or HP-UX! > > No, open files are not overwritten. The new file with the same name (and path > of course) is written to disk, true, but the old file still exists and the > blocks it occupies on disk are not freed until the file is closed.
Well, depends on how you define "open files are overwritten". On Linux, it is like you say. But on Windows and HP-UX, you CANNOT replace a file, if it's still opened somewhere. Eg. you cannot replace /bin/sh. Instead, a new file will be created and after a reboot, the new file will be moved in place (that's how it works on HP-UX, on Windows you cannot overwrite opened files.). What I mean: On Linux, you can replace /bin/sh even if it used. You cannot overwrite the used inodes/blocks, that's absolutely correct, but that's not what I meant. Alexander Skwar -- The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be. -- Lao Tsu -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list