[openbeos] Re: About filesystems

On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 18:27:37 +0200 CEST, "Marcus Petersson" <
mp_1@xxxxxxx> said:

> > All filesystems implement a specific API that is required by the 
> > BeOS VFS
> > (Virtual File System) layer. Of course the internal implementation 
> > varies
> > from FS to FS as they do thigs differently.
> 
> Yes, but obviously they don't share any implementation source.

Yes, but that's because of what I mentioned. Each file system 
implements things differently.
 
> > A cool thing to do would be something like what the SkyOS guys are 
> > doing.
> > Basically that is an extra layer that allows attributes to be read 
> > and
> > written from a specific location (a file, for instance) and that 
> > would
> > allow adding attribute support to filesystems that do not nativelly
> > support it. It is moe or less what HPFS does with FAT partitions in 
> > OS/2.
> 
> You mean on the same device? I thought about that idea for a while as 
> well,
> but decided it was much easier to start with mirror files on the boot 
> disk.

Yes, but having it on the target partition itself makes it posible to 
reboot in another BeOS version 9for example), and still have access to 
the attributes. OTOH, your method could work even with read-only FSs 
(like iso9660).
  
> > I guess a cool approach would be to create a link that would be 
> > linked to
> > the FS add-on and would provide all the abstraction for this so the 
> > code
> > required in the FS itself for this to work would be minimal.
> 
> Typo? "to create a library that would be linked..."?

Yep. :)

> Yes, this is just about
> what I have in mind. Just not sure at which level to implement it. 
> Using the
> C api (fs_attr.h) might be a better idea eventually, rather than 
> relying on
> StorageKit. Doesn't matter much for quick hack though.

Well, you could simply implement this oin the FS itself and that's what 
I was suggesting. This way applications do not have to do anything 
special to take advantage of this.

-Bruno


--
Fortune Cookie Says:

Take your dying with some seriousness, however.  Laughing on the way to
your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms,
and they'll call you crazy.
                -- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul"

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