Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives

[Alexander G. M. Smith]

Horst von Brand wrote on Fri, 03 Sep 2004 22:27:07 -0400:
> Great. Then everything is a firectory (or dile?). And a firectory points at
> other firectories and contains data. I just don't see how you are supposed
> to distinguish the data from further firectories...

I like to call them fildirutes (file/directory/attribute).  A file
typing system would tell you the intended purpose of a particular
fildurute.  So if a fildurute called X has X/..metas/mimefiletype
containing "application/x-directory" then you know that it should be
treated as being primarily a container for other fildirutes and shown
to the user as a folder in a GUI view.  If it said it was
"application/x-text-document" then the GUI system would default to
opening it in a word processor.  Either way, that's only a hint about
how it should be presented to the user, not something the kernel
enforces.

For efficiency, the file type might just be stored in the fildirute's
inode as a code number (since most things would have a file type) that
the file system exposes as a file called ..metas/mimefiletype.

- Alex
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