Re: [Patch v1 2/3] t5318: replace use of /dev/zero with generate_zero_bytes

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 13, 2019, 21:00 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqr2cbbdz6.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <004701d4c3c8$8a018d20$9e04a760$@nexbridge.com>

"Randall S. Becker" <rsbecker@nexbridge.com> writes:

> My second attempt was to create the generate_zero_bytes function to replace
> exactly what the second dd was doing but not user /dev/zero.

Yes, and I think the patch does that ;-)  It was just the original

    dd if=/dev/zero of=... bs=1 seek=$there count=$this_many

would have been impossible to rewrite with the new generate_zero_bytes helper unless $there weren't seeking to the end of the file.

But the other dd before the one the patch rewrites truncates the file to make that seek=$there seeking to the end of the file, so simply appending output from genereate_zero_bytes is sufficient and correct conversion. I wanted to explain that for future readers who may wonder if the patch is doing the exact conversion.