POSIX allows seeking beyond the existing end of file. If an output is performed after this seek, any read from the gap will return zero bytes. Where supported by the filesystem, this creates a sparse file.
wut
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@kirby
Sparse files are a cool feature, it's when currently absent data doesn't occupy real disk space, it's very useful with things like VM disk images — which might have bigger size than what they currently use, this space remains "reserved" — if you copy such a file to a filesystem not supporting sparse files, it starts using all this disk space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparse_file
