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Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 19:36:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tom Samplonius <tom@sdf.com>
To: Scott Lystig Fritchie <fritchie@MR.Net>
cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: One reason to mmap() block devices
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On Fri, 6 Jun 1997, Scott Lystig Fritchie wrote:

> To follow-up to my earlier question about why only regular and
> character files are mmap()able...
> 
> ... I'm interested in mmap()ing a disk block device.  I've been doing
> some alternative INN development, bypassing the traditional filesystem
> for article storage, using instead a few very large files as cyclic
> buffers.

  Why not just mmap() the disk character device instead of the disk block
device?

  The block device is nearly useless for everything except newfs.

Tom