file size different from ls to du

[Drew Eckhardt]

In message <20030729171356.M2453-100000 at fw.office.icom>, bgd at icomag.de writes:
>(17:13) bgd@(bgd)[~/temp] ls -alsh my_file
>19120 -rw-r--r--  1 root  bgd  763M Jul 29 16:56 my_file
>(17:13) bgd@(bgd)[~/temp] du -sh my_file
> 19M    my_file
>
> So the 'ls -alsh' shows a file in size of 763M, but 19M of sectors are
>really 'occupied'. Can someone explain, please?

unix files can be sparse.

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