Richard Reynolds wrote:
> Attribution Lost (jhriv thinks it was A. Lentvorski)
> 
> >"Filesystem" is an API abstraction to access persistent store.  That's 
> >probably as concise and specific a definition as I can make.
> 
> >Pipes, FIFO's, unix-domain sockets, and network sockets are generally not 
> >considered filesystems because they lack persistence.  They *are* 
> >considered streams.
> 
> So if i allocate space in memory format it FAT16, and use it just like a 
> hard drive, I am doing what??? Is that a stream also? it lacks pereistence. 
> If the power goes out, the changes I made are gone... and whats this 
> "generally not considered filesystems" is it a filesystem or not, who 
> decides, and who made them king of filesystems?

If you take a FAT-16 filesystem on a floppy disk, put a file on it and
subject it to a large magentic field, that file is gone. Does this mean
that FAT-16 on a floppy is not a filesystem?

Persistence does not mean that it has to survive X. It merely has to
survive a close and open. The exact thing that a stream can't survive.

-john

Yes, tmpfs on /tmp is a filesystem. Take a look at /dev/shm/ sometime.

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