From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S266631AbUHaU4Y (ORCPT ); Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:56:24 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269150AbUHaUes (ORCPT ); Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:34:48 -0400 Received: from c002781a.fit.bostream.se ([217.215.235.8]:44751 "EHLO mail.tnonline.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269008AbUHaUcD (ORCPT ); Tue, 31 Aug 2004 16:32:03 -0400 Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 22:31:54 +0200 From: Spam Reply-To: Spam X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Message-ID: <1125457632.20040831223154@tnonline.net> To: Hubert Chan CC: reiserfs-list@namesys.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: silent semantic changes in reiser4 (brief attempt to document the idea of what reiser4 wants to do with metafiles and why In-Reply-To: <874qmjm51g.fsf@uhoreg.ca> References: <41323AD8.7040103@namesys.com> <200408312055.56335.v13@priest.com> <36793180.20040831201736@tnonline.net> <200408312235.35733.v13@priest.com> <874qmjm51g.fsf@uhoreg.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org V13>> The only thing that changes (from the userland POV) is the way V13>> someone can enter the 'metadata directory'. This way you don't have V13>> to have a special name, just a special function and no existing V13>> application (like tar) can possibly break because it will not know V13>> how to enter this 'metadata directory'. > tar won't be able to backup the metadata. That's the major breakage of > tar that we're worried about. However, if we do a "cp fileA fileB" then the metadata and streams ought to be copied too, even if "cp" does not support them. This is the real challenge. Backup tools like tar can be patched just like it has so many times before.