Re: Do xml-like namespaces make sense for Reiser4? (re: metas thread)

[Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>]

John D. Heintz wrote:

> Hans Reiser wrote:
>
>> John D. Heintz wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hans,
>>>
>>> If I understand the naming system primitives correctly then the ":" 
>>> introduces a new sequence operator and does evil things to closure, 
>>> right?
>>>
>>> Let's use an example that is likely to conflict: Security plugins 
>>> introducing a name "permissions" to objects.
>>>
>>> Here is my list of how to expose this:
>>> 1) foo.txt/permissions
>>> * likely to conflict with end-user names and other security provider 
>>> names
>>
>>
>>
>> this would be foo/metas/permissions/owner, does that resolve the 
>> problem in your eyes?
>>
>
> Let me verify something: You are suggesting that the "metas" namespace 
> be the entry point for all of the plugin namespaces? I had assumed 
> that each plugin would create it's own. That does certainly reduce the 
> scope of my problem.

It can use metas, but what it does is up to it.  metas is a style 
convention.

>
> I'm not sure it removes the problem though, it just pushes the 
> bottleneck one level away. That is still a good thing: it removes 
> those conflicts from user created names, but not from plugin suppliers.
>
> What if two suppliers of security plugins wanted to expose 
> "permissions"? I'm thinking of the GNOME or KDE file managers growing 
> a GUI permisions dialog to edit the structure of  data/information in 
> the permissions namespace.
>
> If
> # cat foo/meta/permissions
> # WhiteHat open source LDAP security plugin
> owner   jheintz
> grant   some stuff...
> ....
>
> then user applications (like GUI filemanagers) will start depending on 
> that. (Or the sub-structure exposed as further names...) Do you not 
> think this will cause problems when
> # cat foo/meta/permissions
> # NSA Cryptographic security plugin
> authority   The Office of John Heintz
> status    confidential
> grant   some stuff...
> ....

this is the beauty of there being an official maintainer for reiserfs to 
handle such issues;-)

plugins are not created as easily as files;-), there will be few enough 
that I can manage the issue as it happens

>
> If I didn't mind typing really long names I'd say the following is 
> absolutely correct and gives no worry about naming conflict:
> cat foo/metas/nsa.gov/permissions
> cat foo/metas/whitehat.com/permissions
>
> (But then again I'd say the following does as well:
> cat foo/nsa.gov/permissions
> cat foo/whitehat.com/permissions)
>
> I just don't want to type more than I have to. Thanks for the replies,
> John Heintz
>
>
>>> 2) foo.txt/white-hat-permissions
>>> * verbose, but negligible risk of conflicts
>>> 3) foo.txt/white-hat-security/permissions
>>> * nested namespace to provide isolation
>>> 4) foo.txt/<wh-sec>permissions
>>> * syntax implying substitution before name resolution
>>> * could be some other syntax like foo.txt/wh-sec:permissions
>>>
>>> I don't like 1) or 2), and I also don't see much real difference 
>>> between 3) and 4).
>>>
>>> I'm guessing that the syntax of 4) is problem: like the ":" is 
>>> introduces new sequencial operations. I'm viewing it as just a 
>>> syntactic shorthand with a clear translation to the actual name.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>
>
>


-- 
Hans