Article View: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Article #259Re: filesystem links (was: yet another 1.4 request)
From: Matt Dillon
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1989 03:34
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1989 03:34
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:$ There's a clear need for both hard and soft links, and someone who hasn't
:$ used both kinds in the past probably won't clearly understand why,
:
:The problem is that there is a seperate file system process for each
:mounted device on the Amiga, Doug, so it's hard to do cross-device
:links (all that DOS is, for the most part, is a converter that turns
:your requests into messages to send to the Dos-handler or filesystem).
As one who has fooled around with filesystems a bit this is not
difficult to do. The only really sticky part with file handler processes
is how to deal with ExNext(), and this doesn't come up when you implement
soft links.
Routing DOS request packets between filesystem processes is easy.
From using soft links and hard links in UNIX systems it is clear that
soft links are much more useful.
:As for hard links -- in Unix terms, the filename is in the inode under
:AmigaDOS. That means you'd have to put the filename somewhere else if
:you wanted hard links. That sounds pretty reasonable, actually, if you
The problem with hard links on the Amiga is that the filename is
part of the file header (the 'inode'). On UNIX systems the filename
is part of the directory entry and not associated with the inode.
Thus, however hard links are implemented on the Amiga it will be a
big hack. I strongly suggest to C-A that they forget hard links
entirely and implement softlinks (which they can do in a day).
: Eric Lee Green P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509
-Matt
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon From: dillon@POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: filesystem links (was: yet another 1.4 request) Message-ID: <8906300334.AA12228@postgres.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 30 Jun 89 03:34:44 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 34