Program to locate and, if specified, truncate Sparse files. Copyright (c) 1994 University of Salford Academic Information Services This program may be freely distributed and used with the following conditions: a) It may not be incorporated in any commercial programs or uploaded onto any bulletin board operated by a commercial company or which charges fees without the written permission of the Director of Academic Information Services at the University of Salford, Great Britain. b) Neither the University of Salford nor the author of the Program can be held responsible for any damage or consequential loss caused by using this program. This program will locate sparse files as specified on the command line tsparse {} Option Effect -d LOTS of debugging output -v all files scanned are printed -i errors in user input are ignored -t sparse files are truncated. ***************************************************************************** ***** WARNING ****** - MANY DATABASE PRODUCTS WILL CREATE SPARSE FILES. - RECURSION IS NOT OFFERED AS AN OPTION. - THE DEFAULT ACTIONS ARE SAFE [FILES ARE NOT TRUNCATED] - A TEMPORARY FILE $tmp$.spr IS CREATED DURING TRUNCATION - only use this program if you are certain you want to truncate any sparse files. ***************************************************************************** example usage: a) tsparse G:\ccdata\usr* G:\ccdata\?lan???? all files matching the patterns in the directory are scanned to see if they are sparse; if they are the filenames are printed on stdout b) tsparse -t G:\ccdata\usr* G:\ccdata\?lan???? As above, but the files are truncated as well. c) tsparse -t -v G:\ccdata\usr* G:\ccdata\?lan???? As above, but the names of all the files scanned are printed on stderr, together with whether they are sparse or not. Change log ---------- version 1.1: Jeff Pilant told me how to truncate files; the file is no-longer copied. Problems with some versions of netx/vlm flagged in comments Comments -------- The Program reads the sparse file map, which is what all backup programs should do so sparse files don't consume whole tapes. Note: it has been John Baird that some versions of NETX and the VLMs do not correctly support this function call. This program has been tested against : NetWare virtual loadable module manager v1.10 (931209) Novell NE2000 Ethernet MLID v1.54 (931123) NetWare IPX/SPX Protocol v2.12 (931007) NetWare Link Support Layer v2.06 (931202) Finally, BE VERY CAREFUL with this program. Having read the warnings section do NOT run it with the '-t' option unless you know a file is sparse and should not be. This program was Written by Richard Letts, Network Manager, University of Salford. Email: R.J.Letts@ais.salford.ac.uk