Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives

[Helge Hafting <helge.hafting@hist.no>]

Oliver Hunt wrote:

>How would we go about finding out how many data forks were in a file? 
>Because in order to be able to retrieve data from a fork we would need
>to know that the fork were there.  Currently this would imply that we
>go looking through mtab or some such to find out what fs we're running
>on, which seems ugly.
>
>  
>
Depends on how the forks eventually get implemented.
With the file-as-directory concept, all you need is to
look at the file's directory part to see what is there.  (The forks,
implemented as files in a subdirectory.)  It is done the same way
as for an ordinary directory, so nothing "new".

>Alternatively we go through the _exciting_ task of making every other
>fs (with the exceptions of ntfs, and whatever it is that macs use,
>which would need there own custom code) and add code that effectively
>goes
>
>getNumForks(fileref){ return 1;} 
>
>  
>
Necessary if some other mechanism is used, sure.
Helge Hafting