=> On Mon, 10 Jun 2002 17:39:55 -0700, "Joshua S. Bassi" <jbassi AT IHWY DOT 
COM> said:

> What the heck is that all about?  Would somebody from the DB team (Mike
> Karzmarski...) like to explain this one?

They needed something to fill up a bunch of space.  The three obvious choices
are nulls, a fixed pattern, and random bits.

Nulls could be "sparse"-ized down in some filesystems, causing problems down
the line.

Random bits have the problem that it can be very difficult to figure out, a
posteriori, where you have and haven't overwritten anything.

So you pick a pattern, and do it lots.  Eric got to pick. :)

Allen S. Rout