Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756460AbXFSWIJ (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:08:09 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753415AbXFSWHz (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:07:55 -0400 Received: from dsl081-033-126.lax1.dsl.speakeasy.net ([64.81.33.126]:58052 "EHLO bifrost.lang.hm" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752371AbXFSWHy (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:07:54 -0400 Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:07:40 -0700 (PDT) From: david@lang.hm X-X-Sender: dlang@asgard.lang.hm To: Lennart Sorensen cc: Chris Snook , Jack Stone , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, akpm@linux-foundation.org, viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk, hpa@zytor.com, alan Subject: Re: Versioning file system In-Reply-To: <20070619204317.GR10008@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> Message-ID: References: <46731169.2090002@hawkeye.stone.uk.eu.org> <4673182B.4090800@redhat.com> <46739E89.1080003@hawkeye.stone.uk.eu.org> <46781A5B.9090104@redhat.com> <20070619204317.GR10008@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1920 Lines: 35 On Tue, 19 Jun 2007, Lennart Sorensen wrote: > On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 02:03:07PM -0400, Chris Snook wrote: >> I pointed out NetApp's .snapshot directories because that's a method that >> uses legal path character, but doesn't break anything. With this method, >> userspace tools will have to be taught that : is suddenly a special >> character. Userspace already knows that files beginning with . are special >> and treat them specially. We don't need a new special character for every >> new feature. We've got one, and it's flexible enough to do what you want, >> as proven by NetApp's extremely successful implementation. Perhaps you >> want a slightly different interface from what NetApp has implemented, but >> what you're suggesting will change the default behavior of basic tools like >> tar and ls. This is not a good thing. > > I think I used one of those systems once (or at least another one with > .snapshot feature). It managed to completely avoid user space problems > by never actually showing .snapshot in directory listings, but you could > always cd to it or refer to it explicitly. You never risked having tar > or find or anything else accidentally pick it up. Very nice interface. since anything starting with . is considered a 'hidden' file per *nix tradition it's ignored by many programs and optionally ignored by most others (and anything that doesn't ignore . files when presending files to the user has many other problems on modern desktop systems anyway ;-) the only trouble I ever had with the .snapshot approach is when tar or find would decend down into the .snapshot when I didn't really intend for it to do so. David Lang - 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/