Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 14 Aug 2000 14:18:47 -0400 | From | Michael Rothwell <> | Subject | Re: NTFS-like streams? |
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Christer Weinigel wrote:
> So what is the sane way? There are three conflicting requirements for > NTFS-like streams handling: > > 1. Don't break any existing tools, everything must behave exactly as > it does today. tar must be able to make a complete backup. > > 2. Should allow old tools to work on the alternate streams (i.e. > xv file/thumbnail.xpm). > > 3. Should not pollute the filesystem with extra files such as > .AppleDouble, .fork, foo:resources or foo#tar/altstream.
Tar can be updated; the format (AFAIK) already supports named streams/EAs, but the tools do not always. What's the point in making apps written before streams existed work with streams unmodified? It's like trying to make stereo sound work on a mono radio -- the mono radio is not aware of two sound channels and reproduces only a mono signal. Ditto with color TV -- it will display on black and white TVs, but without color -- without the extra data channels that create the color image.
Backwards-compatible does not have to mean "the same as."
-M
> The "files as directories" way is a big deviation from how things work > today, suddenly one can do opendir/readdir on a file
Files with streams are not directories. I would not expect readdir() to work on them. There would have to be a different enumerator function.
> Any comments, I've just tried to do a brain dump to see if anybody > agrees with me or if we're still talking past each other.
:)
> Are there any other ways of doing this?
Well, the filesystem could register "I support streams" and/or "I support EAs" with the VFS (by providing function pointers or something), _and_ provide its preferred namespace augmentation, ":" for NTFS, for example. After all, ":" is not a legal file or pathname character on NTFS.
I'm not sure that second part is cleaner than Linus' straightforward "/dir/file/stream" idea, though. It looks like it might break the "consistency" we're looking for, whereas Linus' idea will not.
On a side note, how many things will _break_ if ":" is used? I.e., /dir/file:stream ?
-M
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