Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269208AbUINIhU (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Sep 2004 04:37:20 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269243AbUINIhT (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Sep 2004 04:37:19 -0400 Received: from hermine.aitel.hist.no ([158.38.50.15]:31493 "HELO hermine.aitel.hist.no") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S269208AbUINIeX (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Sep 2004 04:34:23 -0400 Message-ID: <4146AE28.1050004@hist.no> Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 10:39:04 +0200 From: Helge Hafting User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.3 (X11/20040830) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Elladan CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: silent semantic changes in reiser4 (brief attempt to document the idea ofwhat reiser4 wants to do with metafiles and why References: <41323AD8.7040103@namesys.com> <413E170F.9000204@namesys.com> <200409080009.52683.robin.rosenberg.lists@dewire.com> <20040909090342.GA30303@thunk.org> <414176F2.3030301@hist.no> <20040910201738.GB8698@eskimo.com> In-Reply-To: <20040910201738.GB8698@eskimo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1373 Lines: 40 Elladan wrote: > >>What's wrong with using / as the separator? It is already >>used to separate components of pathnames. Named streams >>are very much like files in a subdirectory. >> >>This scheme makes for very little change to existing tools, >>users may then do a "gimp somefile/icon.jpg" for example. >>Or "ls somefile/*" to see all the named streams/forks. >> >> > >Directories may have metadata as well. > > They can. That doesn't stand in the way of using "/" to separate the named stream's name from the file (or directory) that have the attribute. "Directories may have metadata" pops up now and then, and the solution is so blindlingly obvious that nobody sees it. A file-as-dir can be implemented as a rather normal directory attached to the file's name. The stuff inside may be interpreted as "attributes" or as something more file-like, such as the often mentioned thumbnails. What about a directory then? It _is_ a directory, so it support named streams already. They are usually called "files". :-) So, if you really want a thumb for your directory, just store a thumb.jpg in it. Helge Hafting - 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/