Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site reed.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!reed!alexis From: alexis@reed.UUCP (Alexis Dimitriadis) Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: more on file \"attributes\" Message-ID: <1797@reed.UUCP> Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 00:26:23 EDT Article-I.D.: reed.1797 Posted: Wed Aug 14 00:26:23 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 16:27:17 EDT References: <3403@decwrl.UUCP> <1900007@ccvaxa> Reply-To: alexis@reed.UUCP (Alexis Dimitriadis) Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon Lines: 38 Summary: > There's a lot of stuff in the inode that looks an awful lot like a file > information block. [It would be cute if there were more room in the > directory entry -- then we could have separate attribute lists for > each link to a file...] As someone pointed out, a small amount of file "attributes" is currently being kept on the directory entry itself -- as a suffix to the filename. Other programs use specially named files, or system calls for lock management, etc. Biff uses the owner-execute-premission bit of the terminal name as a flag. (ugh). I am a big fan of UNIX, but I have often felt that _some_ place to keep user-defined, out-of-band information about a file should be provided, say, a field in the inode explicitly set aside for user-defined information. Something could be worked out about who should be able to modify it, and programs that care to could set their output to have the "attributes" of their input (fstat could be made to return the relevant info on pipes). The "attributes" could or could not be copied when copying a file. cp has to explicitly set the permission mode of the new file, after all. More serious would be namespace problems, when more than one family of applications tries to use the field. Please do not flame, I have been carefully following the discussion on the "file information block", and I have never supported it anyway. :-) If I am missing something too, I would like to know. -- _______________________________________________ As soon as I get a full time job, the opinions expressed above will attach themselves to my employer, who will never be rid of them again. alexis @ reed ...teneron! \ ...seismo!ihnp4! - tektronix! - reed.UUCP ...decvax! /