Re: reiser4 (was Re: [PATCH] Revised extended attributes interface)

[Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>]

Anton Altaparmakov wrote:

> At 12:02 12/12/01, Hans Reiser wrote:
>
>> Anton Altaparmakov wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, Hans Reiser wrote:
>>>
>>>> Anton Altaparmakov wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Both MacOS and as of recently Windows do this kind of stuff, too, 
>>>>> and it
>>>>> can't be long before Linux goes the same way, provided file systems
>>>>> support the required features (i.e. EAs and/or named streams) so I
>>>>> disagree with you this is only a compatibility thing. It might 
>>>>> start out
>>>>> as one but it will find real world applications very quickly...
>>>>
>>>> I am not saying that the features of EAs are not useful, I am 
>>>> saying that I want to choose them individually for particular files.
>>>>
>>>> It could be so much better to have EDIBLE_PIZZA (example from 
>>>> previous email) instead of just PIZZA, sigh.
>>>
>>>
>>> I am not quite sure what you mean. Surely you can just have all 
>>> features
>>> available at all times/to all files and then you just use the ones you
>>> want, just ignoring/not using the rest. Why do you see the need for
>>> "selecting features of EAs individually for particular files"? It makes
>>> sense when buying EDIBLE_PIZZA but I don't see how that can be 
>>> transferred
>>> onto files. After all I can just have all pizza ingredients and only 
>>> put
>>> the ones I want on the pizza just ignoring the others.
>>
>> Inheriting stat data from the parent directory should be a feature 
>> available not just for streams, but for all files that want it. 
>> Efficient small file access to a 32 byte file should be a feature 
>> available to all files, not just EAs.  Not being listed in readdir 
>> should be a feature available to all files, not just EAs.  
>> Constraining what is written to them should be a feature available to 
>> all files, not just EAs, and arbitrary plugin based constraints 
>> should be possible.
>>
>> Is this more clear?
>
>
> Yes it is, thanks. And yes it makes sense. But this is talking about 
> files as a whole and has nothing to do with EAs as such (but it would 
> obviously apply to EAs, too under your proposed API). 

There would be no need for EAs if files as a whole could have these 
properties, as EAs would just be particular files with particular 
properties within a directory/file object.

>
>
> I will be looking forward to seeing this stuff implemented. (-:
>
> Anton
>
>

If Linux users get really unlucky, which seems likely, :-/, 2.6 will 
take as long as 2.4, in which case I think we will complete the task in 
plenty of time for 2.6, and we can ask Linus which implementation he 
prefers before he has committed to one in a stable release.

Hans