Beman Dawes wrote:
On POSIX compliant 32-bit systems, is there any reliable way to find the size of a file?
First, POSIX only had stat(), which is limited to 32 bits, as you found out. When files got large enough that this wasn't a good assumption any more even on 32bit systems, a new interface was introduced: stat64() which has, for example, a 64bit stat64::st_size . (Btw, Linux 2.6 supports up to 16 TB file sizes on 32bit machines, AFAIK.) Of course, 64bit environments have their regular stat() use 64bit stat::st_size. You get stat64() by #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE . You get stat() to use a 64bit stat::st_size even on 32bit environments by #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 . Both options require reasonably recent Unix systems. The latter option may impede binary compatibility if some modules are compiled with the #define and others aren't, because the perceived "struct stat" size will be different. Jens Maurer