Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Thu, 26 Aug 2004 13:54:46 -0700 (PDT) | | From | Linus Torvalds <> | | Subject | Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 |
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On Thu, 26 Aug 2004, Martin J. Bligh wrote: > > What would "test -d" and "test -f" return on these magic beasties? I can't > think of any combinations that wouldn't confuse the crap out of userspace.
"It's a feature".
The S_ISDIR/S_ISREG tests show real information: it shows not only user intent ("you should consider this a file, even if it has attributes"), but also whether it is a directory or a container.
And there's a real technical difference there: the streams contained within a file are bound to that file. The files contained within a directory are _independent_ of that directory. Big difference. HUGE difference. So it's not confusing. If it tests as a file, you think of it as a file. It may have attributes aka named streams associated with it, and you may be able to open those attributes by treating the file as a directory, but that doesn't really change the fact that it's a file.
The _big_ difference is that when you can make the compound object _look_ like a directory, that means that you can now manage the attributes with standard tools. They are still attributes, though.
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