In such a case, the file is simply not decompressed, and remains as it
is. Note that the `c' flag (as reported by lsattr) will be
cleared. Clearing the `c' flag (with `chattr -c') is just a
request saying that the normal state of the file is to be uncompressed.
It is not a guarantee that the file will be stored uncompressed. If
there are no more blocks on the device, it is obvious that the file
can't be decompressed, even if the `c' flag is cleared.
However, the file will be decompressed after free blocks become available. This is done by marking the file as dirty (which means not in normal state) as explained in section When does de/compression really occur?. New attempts to decompress a dirty file are made when the file is next accessed. (A simple `touch' or `ls -l' should be enough for that.)
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.