daveb@geac.UUCP (Brown) (09/20/87)
In article <4028@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> mangler@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (System Mangler/Don Speck) writes: >In article <4477@ncoast.UUCP>, allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes: >> (1) Generic links. These would be special files containing, not pathnames, >> but (device, inode) pairs. > >Putting device numbers into a zillion special files makes it exceedingly >painful to move a filesystem to a different device, and isn't likely to >work at all for a network filesystem. Ditto for inode numbers. > True, but the general idea of a dotted pair is a good one. How about making their representation ((device.filesystem).(directory-inode.name)) and the resolution algorithm be: if (device contains filesystem && directory-inode is a directory && name exists) succeed else fail with suitable error (unmounted, no containing dir, no file, etc) fi --dave -- David Collier-Brown. {mnetor|yetti|utgpu}!geac!daveb Geac Computers International Inc., | Computer Science loses its 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, | memory (if not its mind) CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 | every 6 months.