Re: Plugins: Pseudo-fun.

[Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>]

Peter van Hardenberg wrote:

>On November 9, 2005 10:02 am, Hans Reiser wrote:
>  
>
>>>Although the overall goal remains elusive, we think we should be able to
>>>implement a new Reiser4 pseudo directory in 4dot (/..../). This directory,
>>>called "user" will contain per-file user-defined attributes.
>>>      
>>>
>>Why would these go into the pseudo directory instead of into the directory?
>>
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>>
>
>  
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I think ..../user/hat-size is too long, and ..../hat-size is just fine
if they go into "....".   The interesting question though is should they
go into .... or into "."  Alternatively, they should go into ".....",
and that way it can be known whether they were created by users and are
things that are not contained by the object but are instead meta data
about the object.

so, we can either call it robert/hat-size or robert/..../hat-size or
robert/...../hat-size or robert/..../user/hat-size, or, perhaps best of
all, call it BOTH robert/...../hat-size and robert/hat-size and also
have a contained-by/ for distinguishing the objects that are contained
in a directory rather than describe the directory, as in
robert/contained-by/stomach

I think I really prefer the last.  Note that it requires 0 lines of code
beyond allowing files to be directories.  Peter Foldiak (it seems we
have two Peters now so I will be forced into formality.....), please
comment on this, as I value your intuition in semantic matters.

>Let me construct a simple use case for having a namespace separation between 
>contained data and metadata. 
>
>For example, a self-installer or a Klik style bundled package could include 
>all its resources within its own directory. In this hypothetical use case, it 
>would be very valuable for the package metadata (name, version, description) 
>to be clearly differentiated from the package data.
>
>I do not have a strong opinion about whether user metadata should be a sibling 
>of fourdot or a child.
>
>  
>
>>You don't want to have directory traversals use "...." at all.....
>>    
>>
>
>No, we really don't. So far, my experiments with ls and grep show them playing 
>nicely, but that may only be because '....' doesn't get listed by 'ls -la'.
>  
>
That was not an accident....

>  
>
>>>Crashing and glitching:
>>>pvh@arroyo:~/reiser/ $ cd A2.mp3/...<tab>
>>>freezes the console. I think regular files, when pseudo data is enabled,
>>>need to provide some basic directory functionality so that users don't
>>>accidentally blow things up.
>>>      
>>>
>>Why exactly does it freeze things?
>>
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>
>I have no idea. I suspect tab-completion in my console is waiting for a call 
>to file->locate() to come back and doesn't know how to cope when it doesn't.
>
>  
>
>>I hate to say it, but you are the ones most actively working on this
>>now, and I encourage you to fix the little bugs you find as you go, and
>>tell us about them.  Let me know about everything that affects
>>semantics/functionality before fixing it though....
>>    
>>
>
>I'll keep sending out these emails.
>-pvh
>
>  
>
Thanks Peter, it is nice to be seeing someone picking this work up when
everyone else is pinned down by kernel inclusion / bug fixing at the moment.