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From: edhall@randvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: How many times do you "sync"?
Message-ID: <1671@randvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 6-Feb-84 20:54:07 EST
Article-I.D.: randvax.1671
Posted: Mon Feb  6 20:54:07 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Feb-84 02:38:04 EST
References: <200@iwu1c.UUCP>, <2477@rabbit.UUCP>
Organization: Rand Corp., Santa Monica
Lines: 17

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Older CPU's with console light displays, like 11/45's, make sync'ing
easy.  Just type `sync', wait until the display is quiescent, and
hit HALT.  Counting to 5 would work as well.

Typing `sync' more than once is indeed a superstition; I've always
typed it only once, and never had a problem.  The caveat in the
manual is a warning for those who would call sync() and halt
immediately afterwards.  The call schedules all necessary I/O,
but most disk drivers will queue the I/O operations and let the
hardware and interrupt routine handle them while control returns
to the user.  After the hardware (and interrupt routine) has been
given a chance to do its thing with the queued buffers, halting is
quite safe.

		-Ed Hall
		decvax!randvax!edhall