[RFC,PATCH] dnotify: enhance or replace?

Rüdiger Klaehn
2004-03-24T14:15:29Z

Hi all,

I have been working on a dnotify enhancement to let it work recursively
and to store information about what exactly has changed.

My current code can be found here:
<http://www.lambda-computing.com/~rudi/dnotify/>

From reading the list, I got the impression that there is a general
consensus that the current dnotify mechanism is less than optimal, and
that something should be done about it. Is that correct?

My current implementation enhances the dnotify mechanism, but is
backwards compatible to the old mechanism. This is obviously the least
intrusive approach, but it is also less than optimal. For example it
still requires an open file handle to watch for changes in a tree, so it
will create problems when unmounting a device.

In an offline discussion, the issue came up wether it would not be
better to replace dnotify with a completely new mechanism like e.g. a
special netlink socket. Since most userspace programs (e.g. KDE and
gnome) do not use dnotify directly, but through the fam daemon, the
required changes in user space applications would not be that great.

So what is your take on this? Enhance or replace?

best regards,

Rüdiger

p.s.: I cc'ed everybody who I think might be interested in a dnotify
enhancement/replacement.