From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269680AbUHZV3P (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:29:15 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269643AbUHZV2L (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:28:11 -0400 Received: from mail.shareable.org ([81.29.64.88]:19655 "EHLO mail.shareable.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269677AbUHZVZ4 (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:25:56 -0400 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:24:11 +0100 From: Jamie Lokier To: Linus Torvalds 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 Subject: Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 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 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@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