On Wednesday 26 April 2006 09:59, Martin Pool wrote:
> On 23/04/2006, at 8:31 PM, Malcolm V wrote:
<snipped>
> > On an  ext3 filesystem some files stat as being one disk block size
> > larger
> > then would seem necessary.
>
> This is because one block is used to store an "indirect block",
> containing pointers to other blocks.  See for example
>
>    http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Ext2fs-Undeletion-10.html
>
> or any book about unix filesystems.
>
> I expect you will find this happens on all files over 12 blocks in
> length.

Thanks for the link, describes indirect blocks in a nutshell.

Does anyone else get confused by the unclear usage of the term "block"?

Given that a *nix block is always 512 bytes (or is it?) and a disk block is a 
variety of sizes. Most documentation uses the generic term block without any 
effort to indicate which of the two they are talking about.

Cheers,
Malcolm V.
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