- If set, fio will fill the I/O buffers with this pattern. If not set, the
- contents of I/O buffers is defined by the other options related to buffer
- contents. The setting can be any pattern of bytes, and can be prefixed with
- 0x for hex values. It may also be a string, where the string must then be
- wrapped with ``""``, e.g.::
+ If set, fio will fill the I/O buffers with this pattern or with the contents
+ of a file. If not set, the contents of I/O buffers are defined by the other
+ options related to buffer contents. The setting can be any pattern of bytes,
+ and can be prefixed with 0x for hex values. It may also be a string, where
+ the string must then be wrapped with ``""``. Or it may also be a filename,
+ where the filename must be wrapped with ``''`` in which case the file is
+ opened and read. Note that not all the file contents will be read if that
+ would cause the buffers to overflow. So, for example::
+
+ buffer_pattern='filename'
+
+ or::