Re: gzip and .xxx.nodups files

[Bob Proulx]

Stepan Kasal wrote:
> Bartel, Naomi R (N-Iroquoi Sys) wrote:
> > I recently realized that not only is a temporary
> > file created, but also another file called .tempfilename.nodups is also
> > generated.
> 
> I tried to grep through gzip source for the string "nodups" and haven't
> found anything.  So I guess it may appear in connection with the copying
> of the file.  Which program do you use?  scp (openssh or ssh?), or
> wget, or just cp (which cp? ``cp --version'' or SGI cp?)?

Just another thought.  Is $TMPDIRR possibly on NFS or other networked
filesystem?  If so then the "last close" problem might be coming into
play.  Just a shot in the dark.

(The "last close" problem is where NFS attempts to keep local
filesystem semantics.  It gets a file deletion request on an open
file.  Because NFS is stateless it can't just remove the file as that
would break the running process with the file open.  So it renames the
file to a ".nfsABXY" temporary filename.  With crashes it is possible
to leave those laying around indefinitely.  Many NFS systems have cron
tasks which look for those files and try to clean them up to recover
from crashes.)

Bob