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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HDFS-245?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12757440#action_12757440
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Konstantin Shvachko commented on HDFS-245:
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My opinion as I expressed it previously in this jira:
- HDFS is not a single monolithic layer. It consists of several abstract
layers: name-node, client, FileSystem.
Most of them, up to the top one, do not have a clue what to do with a link to
an external file system, and therefore should treat it as an exceptional
condition and throw a Checked exception.
- The current exception-less implementation substantially complicates
(pollutes) the file system api through all of its layers.
Speaking as a developer, supporting this code will be a tough effort.
Understandability of the code suffers as well.
- My personal preference is approach VI. I think Checked exception is exactly
what should be used here, but passing any data inside the exception is a bad
practice. Performance-wise, paying the price of an extra RPC call to the
name-node ONLY when the path REALLY contains the external link is justifiable.
> Create symbolic links in HDFS
> -----------------------------
>
> Key: HDFS-245
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HDFS-245
> Project: Hadoop HDFS
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Reporter: dhruba borthakur
> Assignee: Eli Collins
> Attachments: 4044_20081030spi.java, HADOOP-4044-strawman.patch,
> symlink-0.20.0.patch, symLink1.patch, symLink1.patch, symLink11.patch,
> symLink12.patch, symLink13.patch, symLink14.patch, symLink15.txt,
> symLink15.txt, symLink4.patch, symLink5.patch, symLink6.patch,
> symLink8.patch, symLink9.patch
>
>
> HDFS should support symbolic links. A symbolic link is a special type of file
> that contains a reference to another file or directory in the form of an
> absolute or relative path and that affects pathname resolution. Programs
> which read or write to files named by a symbolic link will behave as if
> operating directly on the target file. However, archiving utilities can
> handle symbolic links specially and manipulate them directly.
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