printf "BIL" > /tmp/BIL

dd of=/tmp/sparse bs=1 count=0 seek=10
dd if=/tmp/BIL of=/tmp/sparse bs=1 count=3 seek=10

dd if=/tmp/BIL of=/tmp/sparse bs=1 count=3 seek=17

dd of=/tmp/sparse bs=1 count=0 seek=30
dd if=/tmp/BIL of=/tmp/sparse bs=1 count=3 seek=30

%>hexdump sparse
0000000 0000 4942 004c 0000 0000 4942 004c 0000
0000010 4200 4c49 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 4942
0000020 004c
0000021

%>cat sparse
BILBILBILBIL%

%>ls -ls /tmp/sparse
8.0K -rw-r--r--. 1 bil bil 33 May 26 14:17 /tmp/sparse

%>dd of=/tmp/sparse bs=1 count=0 seek=5
%>hexdump sparse
0000000 0000 4942 004c
0000005

dd if=/tmp/BIL of=/tmp/sparse seek=1000
ls -ls /tmp/sparse

st_size;             /* total size, in bytes */
blkcnt_t  st_blocks; /* number of 512B blocks allocated */

$ sudo hdparm --fibmap ~/sparse
filesystem blocksize 4096, begins at LBA 25167872; assuming 512 byte sectors.
byte_offset  begin_LBA    end_LBA    sectors
     512000  226080744  226080751          8

$ sudo debugfs /dev/sda3
debugfs:  stat <1040667>
Inode: 1040667   Type: regular    Mode:  0644   Flags: 0x0
Generation: 1161905167    Version: 0x00000000
User:   127   Group:   500   Size: 335360
File ACL: 0    Directory ACL: 0
Links: 1   Blockcount: 664
Fragment:  Address: 0    Number: 0    Size: 0
ctime: 0x4dd61e6c -- Fri May 20 09:55:24 2011
atime: 0x4dd61e29 -- Fri May 20 09:54:17 2011
mtime: 0x4dd61e6c -- Fri May 20 09:55:24 2011
Size of extra inode fields: 4
BLOCKS:
(0-11):4182714-4182725, (IND):4182726, (12-81):4182727-4182796
TOTAL: 83

$ dd of=/var/tmp/sparse if=/dev/zero count=1
$ dd of=/var/tmp/sparse if=/dev/zero seek=1000 count=1
$ filefrag -v /var/tmp/sparse
Filesystem type is: ef53
File size of /var/tmp/sparse is 512512 (126 blocks of 4096 bytes)
ext:     logical_offset:        physical_offset: length:   expected: flags:
  0:        0..       0:    3441408..   3441408:      1:
  1:      125..     125:    3441533..   3441533:      1:    3441409: last,eof
/var/tmp/sparse: 2 extents found