Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4

Jamie Lokier
2004-08-26T19:53:57Z

Joel Becker wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 01:49:15AM -0700, Hans Reiser wrote:
> > Yes, this was part of the plan, tar file-directory plugins would be cute.
>
> Question: Is "cat /foo/bar/baz.tar.gz/metas" the attribute
> directory or a directory in the tarball named "metas"?

This needs to be designed.

Perhaps /foo/bar/baz.tar.gz/tar/metas is the directory in the tarball
named "metas".

Or perhaps /foo/bar/baz.tar.gz/x/metas is: it's independent of archive
format, and I personally tend to extract things into a directory
called "x". [*]

Or perhaps /foo/bar/baz.tar.gz/metas is, and the attribute directory
is /foo/bar/baz.tar.gz/../metas, to be perverse ;)

I prefer the second one, ("x/metas"), but not with any conviction.

-- Jamie

[*] Actually I prefer:

/foo/bar/baz.tar.gz/content/metas
/foo/bar/baz-0.01.tar.gz/content/baz-0.01/metas

Archives always in "content". One layer of decompression
always tried for .tar files and other uncompressed archive
formats.

/foo/bar/baz.tar.gz/x -> content/
/foo/bar/baz-0.01.tar.gz/x -> content/baz-0.01/

If the root of the archive contains a single directory, "x"
is a symlink to it. Otherwise "x" is a symlink to the root
directory of the archive. This is comfortable with the
common practice by which archives are distributed, without
making a mess when someone forgets to put everything in a
top-level directory.