From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jamie Lokier Subject: Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:24:11 +0100 Message-ID: <20040826212411.GG5733@mail.shareable.org> References: <45010000.1093553046@flay> <57730000.1093554054@flay> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: "Martin J. Bligh" , Rik van Riel , Diego Calleja , christophe@saout.de, vda@port.imtp.ilyichevsk.odessa.ua, christer@weinigel.se, spam@tnonline.net, akpm@osdl.org, wichert@wiggy.net, jra@samba.org, reiser@namesys.com, hch@lst.de, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, flx@namesys.com, reiserfs-list@namesys.com Return-path: list-help: list-unsubscribe: list-post: Errors-To: flx@namesys.com To: Linus Torvalds Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org Linus Torvalds wrote: > In other words, the "directory" part is just a _view_ into the file. A > view that potentially exposes a lot _more_ of the file, but we're still > talking about the same file. > > In contrast, a S_IFDIR-like _directory_ is something else entirely. When > you view the things in that, you aren't looking at data "inside" the > directory. You're looking at somethign totally independent. One of the constraints is that you can create any name in an S_IFDIR-like directory, but you probably can't create any name "in" an S_IFREG-like file, because the names have meaning -- except in designated subtrees of the view intended for holding arbitrary names. -- Jamie