Andrew Clausen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on Sat, 12 Jan 2002 09:25:18 +1100: > For package types, it's really both a Debian package and an ar > archive (yes?). Perhaps file(1) should know about such packages, > and call an extracter, and reinvoke itself?
With the XML as a file system approach, the type of each subobject/file would also be visible. The type of the top level thing would be some sort of containerish type. If the user wants to know more, they can open it up (like a directory) and look inside. A GUI display of the top object's contents would have icons that reflect the types of the things inside the directory. > Using EAs also feels wrong. How do you embed files in XML? > Pipes? tar and friends need to know... If you open the file/object (what do you call it, a file which also has subfiles as well as content?) with the normal operation you get access to its data. If you open it with a directory type API, you see the things inside it (attributes and subobjects). If you open the magic attribute called XML, you get the file, attributes and sub-objects as an XML stream. You can also write to the XML attribute to recreate the attributes and subobjects (it replaces the current attributes/subobjects with the new ones when you close the magic XML attribute handle). Voil�! tar and pipes still work. - Alex
