From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Hubert Chan Subject: Re: silent semantic changes in reiser4 (brief attempt to document the idea of what reiser4 wants to do with metafiles and why Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:58:49 -0400 Sender: news Message-ID: <87vfezkm06.fsf@uhoreg.ca> References: <41323AD8.7040103@namesys.com> <200408312055.56335.v13@priest.com> <36793180.20040831201736@tnonline.net> <200408312235.35733.v13@priest.com> <874qmjm51g.fsf@uhoreg.ca> <1125457632.20040831223154@tnonline.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Return-path: list-help: list-unsubscribe: list-post: Errors-To: flx@namesys.com List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: reiserfs-list@namesys.com Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org >>>>> "Spam" == Spam writes: V13> The only thing that changes (from the userland POV) is the way V13> someone can enter the 'metadata directory'. This way you don't have V13> to have a special name, just a special function and no existing V13> application (like tar) can possibly break because it will not know V13> how to enter this 'metadata directory'. >> tar won't be able to backup the metadata. That's the major breakage >> of tar that we're worried about. Spam> However, if we do a "cp fileA fileB" then the metadata and Spam> streams ought to be copied too, even if "cp" does not support Spam> them. Huh? How do you plan on pulling that off? Unless cp uses the not-yet-existing copy syscall, if cp can't see the metadata or streams, how is it going to copy it? Spam> This is the real challenge. Backup tools like tar can be patched Spam> just like it has so many times before. Yes. And if we can get file-as-dir, then we only need to patch tar once, since everything can be exported through that interface. -- Hubert Chan - http://www.uhoreg.ca/ PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7 5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net. Encrypted e-mail preferred.