One might argue that this applies as nicely to files as to network
addresses:
A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route
indicates how to get there.
-- Jon Postel, in RFC791 (Internet Protocol)
Miles Fidelman
--
In theory, there is no difference between
The original question seems to be how to maintain links when the file is
moved or renamed. Perhaps the file could have a unique ID in the file
system, and the link would try the given pathname, but if it's not there,
try the unique ID. Would that work?
Daniel W Gelder daniel.w.gel...@gmail.com writes:
The original question seems to be how to maintain links when the file
is moved or renamed. Perhaps the file could have a unique ID in the
file system, and the link would try the given pathname, but if it's
not there, try the unique ID. Would
We may want a program which unfortunately has a path to a shortcut to still
work if the files they point to are moved.
On Oct 9, 2014 7:56 PM, Pascal J. Bourguignon p...@informatimago.com
wrote:
Daniel W Gelder daniel.w.gel...@gmail.com writes:
The original question seems to be how to
Josh McDonald j...@joshmcdonald.info writes:
Why should links be in the filesystem, rather than an application /
UI construct?
For a lot of reasons. But the question is justified.
- because it would be more modular and represent more code reuse, to
factorize out the management of links
i think the source of the problem usually is that references are not
encoding the intention properly (certainly in the case of symlinks).
let's consider references in the context of e.g. a computer programs:
in prevalent programming languages/systems a call site is referencing
a function by a
Interesting..
Last time a thought about this I figured that a solution could be to split
identity from location.
That is, the location of a file is currently part of its identity, so when
you moved it, all links that refer to it break. If, however, all files
where given a unique identifier (a
On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Fernando Cacciola
fernando.cacci...@gmail.com wrote:
I do realise of course that maintaining a gigantic master index of all
files is not applicable to the real world, but nonetheless I think the
general form of the solution (split identity from location) is
The problem with fixing shortcuts in file-systems, and with links and with
names and with files in filesystems in general, is that the intention of the
link, and even of a filename is not clear.
For a simple example, compare a jpeg of your cat to a configuration file, e.g.
/etc/passwd.
It is
Context below, sorry about the top-post (stupid smartphone.)
I think I remember that in Xanadu, links are two-way streets. When you move
the link, I can only assume that both of those pointing devices would need to
be updated.
I'm not sure how it works though. Is there a central authority
There are two assumptions that do not generally hold.
1) Both sides of links are always available at the same time (not true in
case of NFS that is often symlinked). Just consider the case of notebook
taken home and file system change in mean time.
2) There is a permission to change file system on
If you have symbolic reference, you have to be ready that destination is
gone, moved, or goes offline. Otherwise use hardlinks. You also could
create a defensive layer of symlinks just for indirection.
Nothing could be done in the distributed case anyway, because destination
could change while
Isn't the obvious answer to use indirect addressing via a directory?
John Carlson wrote:
To put the problem in entirely file system terminology, What happens
to a folder with shortcuts into it when you move the folder? How
does one automatically repoint the shortcuts? Has this problem been
Not obvious to me. Are you saying a folder of shortcuts? A shortcut to a
folder? A shortcut to a shortcut to a folder? Instead of using indirect
addressing, can you put it in terms of folders and shortcuts, or do we need
a third type of object? And how does this apply to a general graph
One thing that comes to mind are copying garbage collectors which need to
keep track of references while moving objects around. Probably looking into
how that is solved will provide some insight.
On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 12:35 PM, John Carlson yottz...@gmail.com wrote:
Not obvious to me. Are you
That sounds like a good idea. I like it because it operates on more than
one dataset. However, we'll need to track paths as well as just
references. This is already done for circular references in garbage
collectors, so it might be just the ticket.
What I am wondering is if this sort of thing
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