Jeffrey J. Kosowsky wrote: > The kludge is not the use per-se of hard links > to store the file data but the resulting collapsing of multiple > version of the same file to a single inode that correspond to > different inodes and file attributes in the source data.
You do not have a clear understanding of how hard links work. Hard links don't store data; they represent a name that points to a single inode. All files have at least one hard link (their original name). When you add an additional hard link, it points to the same inode as the original filename. Hard links were designed for this specific purpose (multiple names pointing to the same file without the file data being replicated as well) and their use is not a kludge -- in fact, BackupPC uses them exactly for their intended purpose. For pooling identical files, this kind of thing could be either maintained in the application itself (what you are proposing) or by the filesystem (what BackupPC actually does). Each has tradeoffs, but doing it via the filesystem is hardly "wrong" or a kludge. -- Jim Leonard (trix...@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july _______________________________________________ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
