Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.bhp.com.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!gatech!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!Austria.EU.net!news.ping.at!orcus.ping.at!orcus.ping.at!not-for-mail From: robbe@orcus.ping.at (Robert Bihlmeyer) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Ideal filesystem Date: 30 Mar 1996 13:29:30 +0100 Organization: At Orcus Lines: 66 Sender: robbe@orcus.ping.at Message-ID: <ws20masr11.fsf@orcus.ping.at> References: <4hptj4$cf4@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> <3140C968.20699696@netcom.com> <4ilgto$861@floyd.sw.oz.au> <4j6if4$15gk@news.missouri.edu> <315834CD.7C4DA6C7@netcom.com> <4jc6q5$bgd@josie.abo.fi> <315B0727.70172281@netcom.com> <wska042okz.fsf@orcus.ping.at> <315CA0A1.6C5C9796@netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: orcus.ping.at In-reply-to: Adam Megacz's message of Sat, 30 Mar 1996 02:46:57 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.1 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:20204 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:16191 Hi, I wrote: >> Why would you throw the directory bit away? Keep it as a hint, >> that this object is really and only a directory. ls -F will give >> you "foo/", etc. >>>>> In article <315CA0A1.6C5C9796@netcom.com>, >>>>> Adam Megacz <kalessin@netcom.com> writes: Adam> But then who is going to set that bit?! The user? That's a pain Adam> in the butt to keep fooling with. You're doing it every day: mkdir sets the diretory bit, anything that operates on files does not. modifyea -t icon < icon.source foo would not care whether foo is a file or a directory. >> Are there really empty directories - don't they always contain at >> least "." and ".." Adam> You still havn't answered the question. Assume an empty Adam> directory is a directory with only two files: "." and ".." If it has the directory bit set, it is one. >> Yes, we have a namespace problem here. A solution would be to >> locate directory-EAs by something like >> "/usr/bin/./icon". Forbidding "$" at the start of a filename is >> better than forbidding the name "filetype" - but not much. Adam> I like this idea. The problem is, it probably violates POSIX and breaks programs relying on the assumption that /foo/bar/./baz contains the same data as /foo/bar/baz. >> A file's content - when opened as directory - could be made >> available as the subfile "content". Make tar and consorts think it >> is a directory and you're set. Of course for utilities to be >> really useful, you'd have to make them EA-aware. Adam> Namespace problems again - "content"? what if the file already Adam> exists? It wouldn't. You have two cases: * Object foo is a directory It can't have a "file's content" as such - it only contains entries (i.e. other files and dirs) and EAs. To seperate the two is difficult to do right. The "foo/./bar" is kludgy and a pain to teach to tar (tar ignores "." of course, preventing a loop). There are certainly better solutions. * Object foo is a file It has contents, availiable for example as "foo/content", but not arbitrary entries - only EAs which can be accessed as "foo/this" and "foo/that". Robbe