+.Pp
+A
+.Qq hole
+is defined as a contiguous range of bytes in a file, all having the value of
+zero, but not all zeros in a file are guaranteed to be represented as holes
+returned with
+.Dv SEEK_HOLE .
+File systems are allowed to expose ranges of zeros with
+.Dv SEEK_HOLE ,
+but not required to.
+Applications can use
+.Dv SEEK_HOLE
+to optimise their behavior for ranges of zeros, but must not depend on it to
+find all such ranges in a file.
+Each file is presented as having a zero-size virtual hole at the very
+end of the file.
+The existence of a hole at the end of every data region allows for easy
+programming and also provides compatibility to the original implementation
+in Solaris.
+It also causes the current file size (i.e., end-of-file offset) to be returned
+to indicate that there are no more holes past the supplied
+.Fa offset .
+Applications should use
+.Fn fpathconf _PC_MIN_HOLE_SIZE
+or
+.Fn pathconf _PC_MIN_HOLE_SIZE
+to determine if a file system supports
+.Dv SEEK_HOLE .
+See
+.Xr pathconf 2 .
+.Pp
+For file systems that do not supply information about holes, the file will be
+represented as one entire data region.