Michael Smith wrote: > > > > > Please review attached patch, which adds long overdue feature to our > > > > loader(8), allowing it to load sequence of files as a single object. > > > > > > I don't like this. I would much rather see support for 'split' files > > > implemented as a stacking filesystem layer like the gzip support, with > > > the simple recognition of 'foo.gz.aa' as the first part of a split > > > version of 'foo.gz', which in turn is recognised as a compressed version > > > of 'foo'. > > > > I am curious how in this case the layer is going to know how many > > parts the file contains? > > The simple way to do it is to keep asking for more parts until there are > no more. > > You can take the NetBSD approach of wrapping the file in a multipart tar > archive. > > Or a more elegant method involves the use of a control file. > > eg. the splitfs code, when asked to open "foo" looks for "foo.split" > which is a text file containing a list of filenames and media names, eg. > > foo.aa "Kernel floppy 1" > foo.ab "Kernel floppy 2" > foo.ac "Kernel and modules floppy" > > For each file segment, the process is: > > - try to open the file > - prompt "please insert the disk labelled <whatever>'" > - try to open the file > - return error > > At any rate, my key point is that the splitting should be invisible, and > *definitely* not pushed up into the loader.
Ok, sounds reasonably. I'll try to reimplement the feature this way. Thank you for suggestion. -Maxim To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
