Compare to off_t


Industry response -- the Large File Summit (LFS)!

Large files can be supported, if you incant a prayer:
        -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE

  1.4 Concepts
    The proposed changes are motivated by a consistent implementation of a few very
    basic technical concepts.

    Mixed sizes of off_t
      During a period of transition from existing systems to systems able to support
      an arbitrarily large file size, most systems will need to support binaries with
      two or more sizes of the off_t data type (and related data types). This mixed
      off_t environment may occur on a system with an ABI that supports different
      sizes of off_t. It may occur on a system which has both a 64-bit and a 32-bit
      ABI. Finally, it may occur when using a distributed system where clients and
      servers have differing sizes of off_t. In effect, the period of transition will
      not end until we need 128-bit file sizes, requiring yet another transition! The
      proposed changes may also be used as a model for the 64 to 128-bit file size
      transition.
                - http://www.unix.org/version2/whatsnew/lfs20mar.html