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From: Adam Megacz <kalessin@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Ideal filesystem
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Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 18:17:49 GMT
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It seems that the discussion of EA's in this group has been going in three directions:
1) Those who dislike the idea of generalized inode storage space
2) Those who support it in a more-or-less OS/2 fashion (read: similar; not EXACTLY
like OS/2)
3) Those who support doing away with the difference between files and directories
and making all files directories with a stream attatched to them.
The people who support #3 would advocate use of the following syntax to access the
"filetype" EA on groff:
more /usr/bin/groff/filtype
#3 supporters would also advocate each EA having it's own permission bits. Futhermore,
#3 supporters would say that there is no difference between a file and it's EA; each
is a file-directory-complex.
#2 supporters would advocate that the EA's share the same permissions as their parent
files, and that a different syntax be used to access the EA's on a file. For example,
more /usr/bin/groff::filetype
or something other than "::". The advantage of this is that one can tell whether a
given pathname refers to a file (absence of ::) or an EA (presence of ::).
The reason I bring this all up is because you really can't go "inbetween" #2 and #3;
you have to go one way or the other. I myself am unsure of which method I support;
each has advantages (#2 is more in harmony with "The UNIX way", though it could, in
some cases, break legacy apps). Can anyone present a logical reason why we should go
one way instead of the other? Can anyone present a fourth alternative?
--
Adam Megacz <kalessin@netcom.com>
Website ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/ka/kalessin/adam.html
Linux - OS/2