Re: [PATCH] 2.5.14 IDE 56

Kai Henningsen
2002-05-08T07:12:11Z

torvalds@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds) wrote on 07.05.02 in <Pine.LNX.4.44.0205071142001.1067-100000@home.transmeta.com>:

> If you have /dev/hda1, that _cannot_ be a symlink to the physical tree,
> because on a physical level that partition DOES NOT EXIST. It's purely a
> virtual mapping.

Well ... one *could* argue that there's justification for showing those
partitions by the exact same argument that there's reason to show devices
on a SCSI or USB bus. It's just going further down the tree.

Say something like

/driverfs/root/pci0/00:1f.4/scsi_bus/003/pc_partition/2

Sure, it's software, not hardware. OTOH, it's one of the things that
change with hotplug. (And incidentally, fdisk changing partitions *might*
be handled somewhat like a hotplug event ...)

As to linking to /dev, I see no reason why you couldn't have that tree
include information (not in the tree *structure*, obviously) of what the
relevant device numbers are. That's more expensive than a lookup with a
pointer gotten from /dev, but it's certainly possible.

MfG Kai