[Fedora] Sendmail's 2GiB limit?

[Les Mikesell]

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>>
> It isn't that someone decided to implement a limitation, but that
> they didn't program around a limitation of 32 bit processors.

Somebody decided on size of an off_t back then.

 > The
> limit is imposed by using the standard GNU libc as compiled by gcc
> on 32 bit processors. Considering that 1G hard drive was a large
> drive at the time it was implemented, it was not unreasonable to
> accept a 2G size limit.

I think it was unreasonable for a year or two of probably unmeasurably 
small performance gain to force an ugly workaround to be needed for the 
rest of the life of 32-bit systems.

 > The fact that system memory and hard drive
> sizes progressed much faster then processor size has led to ways of
> handling larger files on 32 bit processors, but you have to use
> them. It tends to be more then just changing a function call. 

Preprocessor macros do all the grunge work, and pretty much every 
program now has made the change.  You just run into one that didn't 
bother every now and then.

 > It
> also tends to make the program run slower, because you need more cpu
> instructions to do the same thing.

But compared to anything involving a disk access a couple of cpu cycles 
aren't going to make a difference.


-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com