Re: Removable media bug

Fuzzy Fox (fox@dallas.net)
Thu, 29 Apr 1999 22:27:40 -0500


BROWN Nick <Nick.BROWN@coe.int> wrote:
>
> The saving to be made by trying to cache the data across a umount of a
> floppy, seems trivial compared to the risk involved. The vast majority of
> the time, the next floppy will be different.

You are thinking of only one case. Yes, if you only mount/umount
floppies, this makes sense. But what if you use a different access
method, such as mtools? Each time the mtools programs are run, they
need to re-access the same information on the disk, to examine the FAT
tables, directories, etc. Caching this information is a big win. But
the block device is opened/closed on every run of the program, so
relying on the change-line to invalidate the buffers makes sense.

-- 
   fox@dallas.net (Fuzzy Fox)      || "Nothing takes the taste out of peanut
sometimes known as David DeSimone  ||  butter quite like unrequited love."
  http://www.dallas.net/~fox/      ||                       -- Charlie Brown

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