Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives (was: silent semantic changes with reiser4)

Dave Kleikamp
2004-09-03T13:05:19Z

On Thu, 2004-09-02 at 19:39, Spam wrote:
>
>
> > On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Spam wrote:
>
> >> Yes, some archive types can't be partially unzipped either. But my
> >> point is that it wouldn't be transparent to the application/user in
> >> the same way.
>
> > It doesnt matter whether it is transparent to the application. It can
> > be the application which implements the required level of
> > transparency.
>
> > User doesnt care what provides the transparency or how it's
> > implemented.
>
> Indeed. I hope I didn't say otherwise :). Just that I think it will
> be very difficult to have this transparency in all apps.

You're missing the point. We don't need transparency in all apps. You
can write an application to be as transparent as you want, but you don't
need every app to to understand every file format.

> Just
> thinking of "nano file.jpg/description.txt" or "ls
> file.tar/untar/*.doc".

I don't do much image editting, but I'm sure there are applications that
let you edit the description in a text file. You can even create a
script that extracts it, runs nano, and puts it back into the jpeg.

This works for me:
tar -tf file.tar | grep '\.doc'

There are userland tools that deal with hundreds of file formats. Use
the tool you need, rather than try to have the kernel do everything.

> Sure in some environments like Gnome it could
> work, but it still doesn't for the rest of the flora of Linux
> programs.

Just choose the right program. tar groks tar files, not ls.

--
David Kleikamp
IBM Linux Technology Center