Re: [boost] boost::filesystem::exists bug and patch

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-02-10 11:44:23

At 09:32 AM 2/10/2004, Jeff Garland wrote:
 >On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 21:18:08 -0500, Beman Dawes wrote
 >> At 01:35 AM 2/9/2004, Jonathan Ultis wrote:
 >>  >::exists is implemented using ::stat. The ::stat routine returns an
 >>  >error on file sizes larger than 2 gigs in libc-2.3.2, and several
 >>  >others. So, very large files never exists (). Using ::access seems
 >> to >fix the problem.
 >>
 >> Good grief! Are you saying that ::stat() cannot be used at all
 >> because it fails for all uses when file sizes are larger than 2 gigs?
 >> ...
 >> That would be a disaster.
 >> ...
 >>
 >> I don't mean to doubt your report, but it seems hard to believe that
 >> such a commonly used function could fail for large files. Is there
 >> more to the story?
 >
 >Why?  As I recall the history here, it has only been fairly recent that
 >many operating systems would support files larger than 2 gig.  AFAIK
 >Microsoft's FAT filesystems are all limited to 2 gig file size limits.
 >So it might be the case that the majority of filesystems currently in
 >use still have this limit....

The problem reported was only for libc with POSIX files greater than 2 
gigs. So it isn't a concern for operating systems which don't support large 
file sizes or for non-POSIX operating systems.

--Beman