This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Janek Schwarz. Original Post: Exception When Writing To A Full Disk? Not In Java! Feed Title: The Wannabe Java Rockstar Feed URL: http://weblog.janek.org/Archive/Categories/javablogs.rss.xml Feed Description: The Wannabe Java Rockstar: Janek's weblog where all posts go to Eleven Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Janek Schwarz Latest Posts From The Wannabe Java Rockstar

Have you ever hoped to get an exception when writing to a full disk in Java? Get ready to be disappointed. Execute this code on a full disk (on Linux/Unix, you can simulate it with hard quota):

FileOutputStream ostream = new FileOutputStream("out");
ostream.write("hello".getBytes());
ostream.close();

No exception is thrown. All you get is a zero-byte-sized file. I don't know about you, but this is not what I expected.

After hours of googling and searching the bug parade, I found a workaround based on FileDescriptor. Every FileOutputStream has an associated file descriptor. With it's sync()-Method, one can force all system buffers to synchronize with the underlying device. The following code -- executed on a full disk -- raises a SyncFailedException:

FileOutputStream ostream = new FileOutputStream("out");
ostream.write("hello".getBytes());
ostream.getFD().sync();
ostream.close();

I don't know the performance implications yet. But I'd rather suffer from a small performance loss than from data loss.

One thing, though, I have to admit: even if it makes my software look bad, bugs like 4338871 on bug parade have a certain beauty.