On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Joe Bowser <bows...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The main argument was that "Persistent" and "Temporary" are completely > meaningless when your data always persists unless you have user > intervention. Therefore, I'm using the definition of temporary as anything > that we can't guarantee will exist later because other processes can access > it/storage can be removed/etc. Namely that this is volatile storage. > Since the data in /data/data/<namespace> is protected by UNIX permissions, > only the user and the app can modify this, therefore this is more > persistent than anything on the /sdcard. This is also inline with what > Blackberry when I asked Fil "What do the other platforms do?" > Yes, I agree with you. Back when we were planning on implementing the File System and Directory Specification I suggested that Android have a public, private and temporary file system but it was shot down. http://groups.google.com/group/phonegap-dev/browse_thread/thread/e7f7a779370f0588/e15f347c8e25252f?lnk=gst&q=Android+media+question#e15f347c8e25252f Actually, I believe both Android and BlackBerry use the /sdcard if it is mounted and default to internal storage if there is no /sdcard. > Honestly, there needs to be something more descriptive than "Persistent" > and "Temporary" in the spec, since this isn't clear. I would love to see an "Application" level file system that only your app would have access to but the spec that we are implementing is geared towards web apps and not mobile apps. > > >IIRC the internal storage directory is protected via the UNIX > filesystem > > >permissions so if I wanted to store a image/audio/video file and call an > > >intent to view/play the file it wouldn't work. > > > > > > > That's true. But if I had something that wiped my SD Card, whatever data I > have there is saved and that it'll still be there if I remove the SD Card > out of an HTC phone, for example. Do people really wipe and/or remove their SD Cards a lot? > Is this behaviour documented anywhere? I've seen literally hundreds of > apps that pollute the /sdcard space with crap. Yup, it is right here: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/data-storage.html#ExternalCache > Do we know how widely this feature is used? Can we need to get more info on > the API in general and weigh which parts we can easily break and which > parts are verboten. I'm definitely open to suggestions on how to do it, > since that'd be better than the "People use this" argument, since I'm sure > there's people who use ALL of the APIs. > I can't point to exact numbers but I've answered multiple questions on the mailing list about getting the root file system. Simon Mac Donald http://hi.im/simonmacdonald
