pattern: Add support for files in buffer_pattern argument.

[fio.git] / HOWTO

diff --git a/HOWTO b/HOWTO
index ea9466a8d0e79e5cc6315d8db5fa07654290066b..d3a578378ab49e43e89fd33be9cdc6046b22e674 100644 (file)
--- a/HOWTO
+++ b/HOWTO
@@ -1401,11 +1401,18 @@ Buffers and memory
 
 .. option:: buffer_pattern=str
 
-       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::
 
                buffer_pattern="abcd"
 
@@ -1419,7 +1426,7 @@ Buffers and memory
 
        Also you can combine everything together in any order::
 
-               buffer_pattern=0xdeadface"abcd"-12
+               buffer_pattern=0xdeadface"abcd"-12'filename'
 
 .. option:: dedupe_percentage=int
 
@@ -2836,7 +2843,8 @@ Error handling
 .. option:: ignore_error=str
 
        Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test in that case you can
-       specify error list for each error type.
+       specify error list for each error type, instead of only being able to
+       ignore the default 'non-fatal error' using :option:`continue_on_error`.
        ``ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST`` errors for
        given error type is separated with ':'. Error may be symbol ('ENOSPC',
        'ENOMEM') or integer.  Example::
@@ -2844,7 +2852,8 @@ Error handling
                ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122
 
        This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and 122(EDQUOT) from
-       WRITE.
+       WRITE. This option works by overriding :option:`continue_on_error` with
+       the list of errors for each error type if any.
 
 .. option:: error_dump=bool