Re: [PATCH] reiserfs: fix handling of device names with /'s in them

[Jeff Mahoney <jeffm@suse.com>]

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Hans Reiser wrote:
> Jeff Mahoney wrote:
> 
>> Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 20:02:27 PDT, Hans Reiser said:
>>>> Create a mountpoint which knows how to resolve a/b without using a
>>>> "directory".
>>> And said mountpoint gets past the '/' interpretation in the VFS, how,
>> exactly?
>>
>>> fs/namei.c, do_path_lookup() does magic on a '/' on about the 3rd line.
>>> So you're going to get handed 'a'.
>>
>> That's where he started talking about how BSD gets namei() right by
>> allowing each file system to deal with it how it chooses.
>>
>> Personally, I think it's insane. On occasion, I've started to port
>> ReiserFS to BSD-like systems, 
> 
> Porting V3 to anything is insane.  Why would you even consider it?

Because I have an iBook I dual boot, and I wanted access to my reiserfs
file systems while using OSX. I'd call it more of a write-from-scratch
than a port, actually.

>> and I get so fed up with how you have to
>> reinvent the wheel for everything. There's something to be said for
>> replaceable-anything semantics, but personally I like the Linux model
>> and having an agreed-upon framework to work with.
> 
> Linux vs. BSD's namei is the difference between thinking you know how to
> do things and everyone should be forced into your mold, and thinking
> that someone will always be more clever, at the very least with regards
> to some special case you could never have anticipated.

That's great, except that by and large, the Linux VFS covers all the
common cases for you. This is such a ridiculous corner case that it
hardly justifies using the BSD namei() semantics.

>> I also think it's insane to come up with a reisermetafs to export procfs
>> information when a simple s#/#!# _on a single directory name_ will do
>> the job.
> 
> Or just create a parent directory and skip the metafs.  Look, I don't
> much care about the other details of coding it, but if you are changing
> !'s to /'s, as an architect my intuition says something is wrong and
> being papered over.  /'s are just fine, and what the block devices do is
> elegant.   You are doing a quick hack.

Yes, it is a quick hack. It's called being practical and consistent
until we can get around to removing slashes. Slashes *were* ok in block
device names until we started using them as path name components.

I've stated the reasons why adding a subdirectory is a bad idea multiple
times. The fix is already accepted. I'm done discussing this.

- -Jeff

- --
Jeff Mahoney
SUSE Labs
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