From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Alexander G. M. Smith" Subject: Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 09:20:47 -0400 EDT Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <89955622176-BeMail@cr593174-a> References: <200409040227.i842R7io003637@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: helge.hafting@hist.no, oliverhunt@gmail.com, reiser@namesys.com, torvalds@osdl.org, ninja@slaphack.com, jamie@shareable.org, bunk@fs.tum.de, viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk, hch@lst.de, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, flx@namesys.com, reiserfs-list@namesys.com, spam@tnonline.net Return-path: Received: from smtp105.rog.mail.re2.yahoo.com ([206.190.36.83]:17039 "HELO smtp105.rog.mail.re2.yahoo.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S269916AbUIDNUo (ORCPT ); Sat, 4 Sep 2004 09:20:44 -0400 In-Reply-To: <200409040227.i842R7io003637@localhost.localdomain> To: Horst von Brand List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org Horst von Brand wrote on Fri, 03 Sep 2004 22:27:07 -0400: > Great. Then everything is a firectory (or dile?). And a firectory points at > other firectories and contains data. I just don't see how you are supposed > to distinguish the data from further firectories... I like to call them fildirutes (file/directory/attribute). A file typing system would tell you the intended purpose of a particular fildurute. So if a fildurute called X has X/..metas/mimefiletype containing "application/x-directory" then you know that it should be treated as being primarily a container for other fildirutes and shown to the user as a folder in a GUI view. If it said it was "application/x-text-document" then the GUI system would default to opening it in a word processor. Either way, that's only a hint about how it should be presented to the user, not something the kernel enforces. For efficiency, the file type might just be stored in the fildirute's inode as a code number (since most things would have a file type) that the file system exposes as a file called ..metas/mimefiletype. - Alex