[Bug-ddrescue] Request for new logfile status character

[Scott Dwyer]

Antonio,

I would like to make a request for a new logfile status character, with 
the definition along the lines of "do not read this area" or "ignore 
this area". I think the ! exclamation point would be a suitable 
character fit.

Ddrescue would basically ignore these areas and not try to read them at 
all. Also, ddrescue itself would never create this status or try to 
change it. That would have to be done manually, or via ddrescuelog (yes, 
it would definitely be needed in ddrescuelog also for control).

Now for the reason I would like this. I am planning on releasing a 
utility in the future that will extract the ntfs bitmap file and produce 
a ddrescue logfile that will tell ddrescue to only copy the used portion 
of an ntfs partition and skip the unused parts. Currently the only way 
to do this is to mark the unwanted portion as + already read. This is 
not ideal at all, as it makes it look like the whole disk (partition) 
was read, and it gets complicated if you would ever want to then read 
the rest of the disk later.

I am not in a hurry for this, and if you choose not to then I can still 
work around it. But it would help me :)

Thanks,
Scott