Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S268753AbUIHBcZ (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Sep 2004 21:32:25 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S268515AbUIHBcZ (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Sep 2004 21:32:25 -0400 Received: from wbar4.sea-4-12-009-117.dsl-verizon.net ([4.12.9.117]:39828 "EHLO chancroid.omgwallhack.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S268788AbUIHBbj (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Sep 2004 21:31:39 -0400 Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 18:29:45 -0700 From: Julian Blake Kongslie To: Gunnar Ritter Cc: David Lang , Christer Weinigel , Horst von Brand , viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk, Linus Torvalds , Tonnerre , Spam , ReiserFS List , Hans Reiser , Pavel Machek , David Masover , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, Jamie Lokier , Christoph Hellwig , Alexander Lyamin aka FLX , Chris Wedgwood Subject: Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 Message-ID: <20040907182945.6d5f5ff5@amebiasis.omgwallhack.org> In-Reply-To: <413E40D1.nailFBI11XFML@pluto.uni-freiburg.de> References: <200409070206.i8726vrG006493@localhost.localdomain> <413D4C18.6090501@slaphack.com> <413DFF33.9090607@namesys.com> <413E40D1.nailFBI11XFML@pluto.uni-freiburg.de> X-Mailer: Sylpheed-Claws 0.9.12a (GTK+ 1.2.10; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg="pgp-sha1"; boundary="Signature=_Tue__7_Sep_2004_18_29_45_-0700_VYW7IkN3ETwnX+Wg" Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2362 Lines: 54 --Signature=_Tue__7_Sep_2004_18_29_45_-0700_VYW7IkN3ETwnX+Wg Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 01:14:25 +0200, Gunnar Ritter wrote: > Having a separate S_IFXXX type for streamed files would also give > attention to portability issues easily. It might in fact be better > to have existing applications fail explicitly with them than to > make this as transparent as possible, but hope for good luck. > > Utilities like 'tar' would just say 'Unknown file type' or the like > and exclude such files from the archives they create. This would lead > the user's explicit attention to the data loss. He might then choose > to ignore the error, or to get a special version of 'tar' to handle it. > > It would also be clear to programmers and users that such files are > special things they don't normally need. Regular Linux installations > might totally ignore them. If streamed files are only intended for > use with CIFS or other special cases, that might be a more clean > solution for this issue than watering down the existing portable > file semantics. You could actually use two S_IFXXX types - one for stream files which should be archived by backup programs because they contain real information, and a different one for stream files which should not be archived because they are merely a different "view" of data from the main file. This simplifies the archival problem because legacy programs would complain that the file types aren't handled - alerting the user to potential data loss, and updated programs would automatically backup only the attributes that are required. -- -Julian Blake Kongslie --Signature=_Tue__7_Sep_2004_18_29_45_-0700_VYW7IkN3ETwnX+Wg Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFBPmCPuU009xtCYDURAjnEAJ9M39DH9swoWycXObvE3kYssKsnAwCgjcWc cdDqkEpSxjBfap9yjUtgrdQ= =Gx15 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Signature=_Tue__7_Sep_2004_18_29_45_-0700_VYW7IkN3ETwnX+Wg-- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/