Re: UTF-8 practically vs. theoretically in the VFS API

Stefan Smietanowski
2004-02-17T16:55:06Z

Hi Linus.

>>Because there is a fundamental difference between file contents and
>>filenames. Filenames are supposed to be text.
>
> I think this is actually the fundamental point where we disagree.
>
> You think of filenames as something the user types in, and that is
> "readable text". And I don't.
>
> I think the filenames are just ways for a _program_ to look up stuff, and
> the human readability is a secondary thing (it's "polite", but not a
> fundamental part of their meaning).
>
> So the same way I think text is good in config files and I dislike binary
> blobs (hey, look at /proc), I think readable filenames are good. But that
> doesn't mean that they have to be readable. I can well imagine encoding
> meta-data in the filename for some database that uses the filesystem as
> its backing store and generates files for large blobs. And then there
> would be little if any "goodness" to keeping the filenames readable.

Just look at Mozilla's cache... They may have turned the blob into
ascii but it's still a blob.

// Stefan