Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4

Spam
2004-08-26T10:14:12Z

> On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 05:42:21PM -0700, Nicholas Miell wrote:
>> On Wed, 2004-08-25 at 16:46, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
>> > Previously Jeremy Allison wrote:
>> > > Multiple-data-stream files are something we should offer, definately (IMHO).
>> > > I don't care how we do it, but I know it's something we need as application
>> > > developers.
>> >
>> > Aside from samba, is there any other application that has a use for
>> > them?
>> >
>>
>> Anything that currently stores a file's metadata in another file really
>> wants this right now. Things like image thumbnails, document summaries,
>> digital signatures, etc.

> That is _highly_ debatable. I would much rather have my cp and grep
> and cat and tar and such continue to work than have to rewrite every
> tool because we've thrown the file-is-a-stream-of-bytes concept out
> the window. Never mind that I've got thumbnails, document summaries,
> and digital signatures already.

In Windows, the extra file streams are not lost or removed if you
use a program that doesn't support them. They are only lost if you
move the file to a file system that doesn't support the streams.

Even RAR support the NTFS file streams.

> While the number of annoying properties of files with forks is
> practically endless, the biggest has got to be utter lack of
> portability. How do you stick the thing in an attachment or on an ftp
> site? Well you can't because it's NOT A FILE.

> A file is a stream of bytes.