On Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 06:04:04AM +0800, jeremy ardley wrote: [...]
> If you look at the NTFS file system [...] > Underneath the hood of a NTFS file is alternate data streams (ADS). That is > a single file can contain main different 'sub files' of completely different > content type. Each ADS has metadata describing the stream. I think the idea "was in the air" back then (mid-1980s), covering a wide field between "rich file metadata" and several "streams" per file, cf. Apple's HFS, which evolved into HFS+; NTFS is itself an evolution of OS2's HPFs, etc, etc. You also see, back then, increasing use of B and B+ trees in different roles in file systems. After all, designers moved from company to company and carried with them ideas and teams. Companies were aggressively hiring people off other companies. It's actually risky to say "so and so had first this feature" without deep research. Where do you put the limit between "file metadata" and "file substream"? 65K? 4T? HP/UX implemented a file stream mechanism on top of its Unix file system (those were directories which looked like files), explicitly to support multi-architecture binaries. Remember Apple's "fat binaries", which contained a binary for 68K and another for PowerPC? Those were made with "forks", which was Apple's variant of "several streams in one file". And so on. Interesting times :-) Cheers -- t
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
