Re: Implementing Meta File information in Linux

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
25 Aug 1998 07:32:08 GMT

Followup to: <199808250052.UAA07561@hilfy.ece.cmu.edu>
By author: "Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH" <allbery@kf8nh.apk.net>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> In message <35E178D3.CBFC4174@flashnet.it>, "Sebastiano Tine'" writes:
> +-----
> | For my final work in the course of computer scienze at the faculty of enginering
> | of "Universita La sapienza" in Rome (ITALY), i studing the of implementing in
> | the linux kernel a feature similiar tu Apple MacOS resource fork or IBM OS/2
> | Extended Attributes.
> +--->8
>
> struct fs_meta {
> int tlen;
> char *tag;
> int dlen;
> char *data;
> }
>
> fcntl(fd, F_GETTAGS, &meta) /* tag = 0, tlen = # of tags; null-separated */
> /* list in data */
> /* (or use another structure) */
> fcntl(fd, F_[GS]ETMETA, &meta)
>
> Now, the flaw: you also have to change everything that manipulates files to
> deal with them. cp, for instance, would copy the file data but not the
> metadata; likewise tar. This is the main reason I haven't bothered despite
> its potential usefulness (being that I'm an ex-Mac'er *and* a current OS/2
> user): it doesn't fit in with the rest of the system at all.
>
> In short, it's not worth the effort.
>

And if it was, it would be cleaner implemented as a directory;
presumably with a "I'm really a multi-fork file" flag on it.

-hpa

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