From: Daniel Phillips Subject: Dot and dotdot need to be physically present? Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:36:59 -0700 Message-ID: <200808131636.59436.phillips@phunq.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Theodore Tso To: linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from phunq.net ([64.81.85.152]:34673 "EHLO moonbase.phunq.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752781AbYHMXhB (ORCPT ); Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:37:01 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Hi Ted, Many years ago we had a discussion about whether or not the . and .. directory entries had to be physically present in htree, and I remember the conclusion was that they had to be, but I forget the argument and lost track of the email thread. I think the VFS will happily supply the . and .. entries to getdents on its own. So what was the issue? Something about telldir? This is in relation to implementing a cleaner successor to htree that could end up being useful to Ext4 and Lustre as well as Tux3. See "phtree" here: http://tux3.org/design.html Regards, Daniel p.s. Wow, you still have your MIT email. There must be a war story.