Subject: bug#9157: [PATCH] dd: sparse conv flag

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:50:36 -0800

On 02/27/2012 05:09 PM, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> how
> to handle existing regular files with conv=trunc.
> I.E. seeking over existing possible non NUL data.
> It's too dangerous/inconsistent to do this for files I think.

Why?  This is *dd* we're talking about here.
It's *supposed* to be used for tricky stuff like this.

If one interprets conv=sparse to mean "write sparsely",
rather than "create a sparse file that exactly mimics
the input's sparseness", then everything should be clear,
no?