fs: Introduce FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE flag for fallocate

Introduce new FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE flag for fallocate. This has the same
functionality as xfs ioctl XFS_IOC_ZERO_RANGE.

It can be used to convert a range of file to zeros preferably without
issuing data IO. Blocks should be preallocated for the regions that span
holes in the file, and the entire range is preferable converted to
unwritten extents - even though file system may choose to zero out the
extent or do whatever which will result in reading zeros from the range
while the range remains allocated for the file.

This can be also used to preallocate blocks past EOF in the same way as
with fallocate. Flag FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE which should cause the inode
size to remain the same.

Signed-off-by: Lukas Czerner <lczerner@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>

1 files changed, 14 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/falloc.h b/include/uapi/linux/falloc.h
index 5ff562ddac0b..d1197ae3723c 100644
--- a/include/uapi/linux/falloc.h
+++ b/include/uapi/linux/falloc.h
@@ -27,4 +27,18 @@
  */
 #define FALLOC_FL_COLLAPSE_RANGE        0x08
 
+/*
+ * FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE is used to convert a range of file to zeros preferably
+ * without issuing data IO. Blocks should be preallocated for the regions that
+ * span holes in the file, and the entire range is preferable converted to
+ * unwritten extents - even though file system may choose to zero out the
+ * extent or do whatever which will result in reading zeros from the range
+ * while the range remains allocated for the file.
+ *
+ * This can be also used to preallocate blocks past EOF in the same way as
+ * with fallocate. Flag FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE should cause the inode
+ * size to remain the same.
+ */
+#define FALLOC_FL_ZERO_RANGE            0x10
+
 #endif /* _UAPI_FALLOC_H_ */