In article <1631 at unccvax.UUCP> cs00chs at unccvax.UUCP (charles spell) writes: >lseek(fd, 1L, 1); -OR- lseek(fd, 500001L, 0); The kernel does essentially the same operation in both cases, the only difference being a miniscule amount af extra arithmetic in the relative- seek case. Why are you worrying about such things, anyway?