Re: Implementing Meta File information in Linux

Olaf Titz (olaf@bigred.inka.de)
Tue, 15 Sep 1998 12:36:22 +0200


> Eliminate the distinction between directories and files.
> Every inode has a data "fork" and a "directory" fork.
> You can thereby annotate a directory by writing to the
> data fork and supply meta information for data files by
> creating files in the "directory" fork. Simple. Cute.

You have to put in some sanity checks to avoid the directory fork
getting messy for regular files. I'd recommend a "restricted"
directory which can't contain
(a) non-regular files, including directories and symlinks
(b) files with more than one link (think about why).
It also doesn't need the . and .. entries and should not be allowed to
chdir() or chroot() into.

Other than that, the idea looks particularly good because it avoids
the need for a resource manager library to put structure in.

> Only requires figuring out semantics for the
> struct-stat.st_mode field.

That's simple: it defines the default for open() and the checks
mentioned above.

olaf

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