[Bug-ddrescue] Slow reads for x time to exit and whitespace skipping

[Cameron Andrews]

Hi Antonio,

I have a couple of requests if at all possible to include them in the 
next version:

Firstly, if the --min-read-rate and --max-slow-reads configuration could 
be extended so it could be possible to include a timeout, so, I would 
set --min-read-rate and then --max-slow-read-time=60 or something like 
that.  So if it sits at or below the minimum for that length of time, it 
would exit ddrescue...   Alternatively to this, could you send ALL the 
error codes to stdout?  Not just 0, 1, 3 ... Then I could write a script 
to get around the time issue..  I presently have a drive which runs fine 
for a random period of time, then just goes slow, a power cycle and it's 
fine..  I'd like to automate this process..

Second request is for a whitespace detector, hopefully it's not outside 
the scope of ddrescue and isn't as hard as it sounds.  But basically on 
really slow drives, yet large drives which have data spread sparsely for 
whatever reason, it would be good if ddrescue could be told to jump 
forward xM read, if it sees whitespace, then skip again.  Then when it 
finds data, it skips backwards in much smaller increments until it finds 
whitespace again, and then starts recovering the drive normally till it 
hits more whitespace, then repeats...

I hope that is enough of a description of my requests, let me know if 
not.  Thanks for doing such a great job!

--
Kind Regards,
Cameron Andrews