Re: Random idea:

[nisse@lysator.liu.se (Niels Möller)]

Dirk Ritter <dirk@gnumatic.de> writes:

> Hello chen!
> 
>  On Thu, 30 December 1999 at 08:51:19, you wrote:
>  > 
>  > The program creating the file can record the file type when creating it.
>  > There can be a default file type umask
> 
> Looks reasonable but I doubt that it works without problems.
> Too simple and much too weak if you ask me.

In a discussion some time ago, I proposed keeping a property list with
each inode. I think that would be cute, useful and general way to
extend the information about an inode.

Examples of systems using property lists to keep auxillary information
about objects include emacs' text- and symbol-properties, X's window
properties (e.g. window titles and icon-bitmaps), and lisp systems.

I don't think anyone of the people actually hacking on the HURD have
liked the idea. Cooking up an interface for it should not be
difficult, but I have no idea how much work it would take to get the
information into, say, the ext2 filesystem.

/Niels