[PATCH] IFS: Inode FileSystem

[Dag-Erling Smørgrav]

Scott Long <scottl at samsco.org> writes:
> Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
> > This is primarily an API issue, not a filesystem layout issue.  We
> > already have at least one filesystem with 64-bit inodes (msdosfs).
> What do you mean it's not a layout issue?  We can't make incompatible
> layout changes whever we feel like it, or else transportability of
> filesystems is completely lost and everyone who wants to boot more
> than just the Last And Greatest on their system winds up with
> unnessary pain.

Changing the stat(2) API to support 64-bit inodes does not require us
to simultaneously change the on-disk layout of every filesystem we
support to use 64-bit inodes.  However, if we want to fully support
filesystems with 64-bit inodes (such as FAT32, which currently uses a
convoluted hack to map the 64-bit offset of a directory entry into a
32-bit inode), we need to change the API.

The ironic thing is that we already have a 64-bit stat(2)...  for
Linux ABI compatibility.

DES
-- 
Dag-Erling Smørgrav - des at des.no