The information is very much appreciated here, Erik Quanstrom.
so in plan 9, it's possible to know the device providing the file
(try ls -l /dev), [...]
From this I gather the client-side caching problem sqweek pointed out can
be easily addressed. Caching or no caching can be decided by the provider
of the file. And files are "typed"--though not explicitly--because you can
tell them apart.
--On Thursday, November 13, 2008 9:17 AM -0500 erik quanstrom
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Not that type of "types." I gave an example (which Charles Forsyth found
to be a bad one) to set the types of "types" apart. I mean "types" as
in named pipes ("special" files) versus regular files. In my experience
which is limited to "modern" UNIX clones, i.e. Linux and *BSD, you can
distinguish between a number of file "types" and decide what to do
accordingly. You can tell a directory, from a (character or block)
device, from a link, from a regular file. These same "types" could, and
have been, be used to represent some details of the underlying resource.
actually, unix since early bsd does have file types. (actually,
they derive from different types of file descriptors). for example,
there's a different and disjoint set of operations for sockets.
there are some files that only respond to ioctls.
so in plan 9, it's possible to know the device providing the file
(try ls -l /dev), but there are no links, there is a pretty strong
namespace (namespace(4)) convention and all files respond to
the same io primatives so what more information do you need?
- erik
