Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!newshost.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!psgrain!newsfeed.internetmci.com!EU.net!sun4nl!rnzll3!sys3.pe1chl!rob From: rob@pe1chl.ampr.org (Rob Janssen) Subject: Re: Ideal filesystem X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 (NOV) Reply-To: pe1chl@wab-tis.rabobank.nl Organization: PE1CHL Message-ID: <DpA1tK.2GD@pe1chl.ampr.org> References: <4hptj4$cf4@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> <3140C968.20699696@netcom.com> <4ilgto$861@floyd.sw.oz.au> <4j6if4$15gk@news.missouri.edu> <315834CD.7C4DA6C7@netcom.com> <4jeui7$f12@park.uvsc.edu> <4jk46u$3vv@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu> <4jpju9$77c@park.uvsc.edu> Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 08:20:07 GMT Lines: 58 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:20491 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:16461 In <4jpju9$77c@park.uvsc.edu> Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> writes: >jmcc@m5.vi.ri.cmu.edu (Jason Mcmullan) wrote: >] I have a point of disagreement with Terry Lambetr here... > ~~ >] Terry's major argument about the "files as directories" based file >] filesystem is shell hashing - but why? Either you make the file >] at the top of the executable's file structure the binary for the delivered >] architecture, or you simply use a shell script like this: >[ ... shell script elided ... ] >This is not 'Terry's major argument', this is one example of a >class of problem with the idea. >My major argument is protecting the association between the >file and the attributes of the file across system failures... >basically, any event which could, if executables were tagged >by directory, pull a single attribute or a.out into lost+found >with no way to reestablish the association. There's Terry again, complete with failing filesystem. I think it's time you move over to a more reliable filesystem Terry! Your files are ending up in lost+found all the time, while the people in the Linux camp never see that happen, even when the system crashes, on files that were not modified right at that time. The executables are not supposed to be modified (deleted/recreated) all the time. It is just not sensible to stress this argument all the time, when other unrelated issues are discussed. The filesystem may fail, but it is not an argument against using certain directory structures. When you want things in lost+found to be identifyable, you merely have to make sure the linker puts some identification string in the executable. Anyway, some years ago I have worked a while on a system where each commandname was the name of a directory, which contained some files. One of them was the executable. (it was the Olivetti L1/MOS system) This actually worked well. At least the directory provides a sensible place to store some read-only files that belong to the application, files that end up in all kinds of directories in the UNIX system, and make it so difficult to track which files belong to which programs. (helpfiles, system-specific configuration files, etc) Of course there should be some systemcall to retrieve the name of the directory that actually was used to load the executable from (or change directory to there), so that the extra files can be opened in the right directory. Rob -- +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | Rob Janssen rob@knoware.nl | BBS: +31-302870036 (2300-0730 local) | | AMPRnet: rob@pe1chl.ampr.org | AX.25 BBS: PE1CHL@PI8WNO.#UTR.NLD.EU | +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+