Re: file as a directory

[Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>]

Peter Foldiak wrote:

>On Tue, 2005-05-10 at 16:14, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
>  
>
>>On Tue, 10 May 2005 10:39:23 BST, Peter Foldiak said:
>>    
>>
>>>Back in November 2004, I suggested on the linux-kernel and reiserfs
>>>lists that the Reiser4 architecture could allow us to abolish the
>>>unnatural naming distinction between directories/files/parts-of-file
>>>(i.e. to unify naming within-file-system and within-file naming) in an
>>>efficient way.
>>>I suggested that one way of doing that would be to extend XPath-like
>>>selection syntax above the (XML) file level.
>>>      
>>>
>>I believe the consensus was that this needs to happen at the VFS layer, not
>>the FS level.  The next step would be designing an API for this - what would
>>the VFS present to userspace, and in what way, and how would backward
>>combatability be maintained?
>>    
>>
>
>But can it be done efficiently above the file system level??
>
>As far as I understand, Reiser4 has this nice tree structure, which
>means that the part of file selection could be done with almost no extra
>effort, you just attach additional names to inside nodes of the tree, so
>the same tree can be used to store the whole object, and part of the
>same tree can be used to select the object part. Right?
>If you do this above the file system level, I don't think it would have
>such an efficient implementation. Or would it?  Peter
>  
>
The tree structure Peter speaks of is a storage layer entity, and so I
think Peter's argument is not correct, but what Reiser4 also has is a
plugin architecture, and it would be much easier to code it if we use
the plugin architecture.

Hans