On 11 Aug 2000, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> "/bin/mv", yes. Makes complete sense to move a full file with all
> "subforks". It's actually very similar to a directory move.
>
> But /bin/cp cannot do the same, at least not without teaching it to do
> the same thing as for a recursive directory copy (which a regular UNIX
> cp wouldn't even try to do on a regular file). But the recursive
> directory copy approach should work.
>
> At least in theory.
Why not just make the whole file (all streams in a sequence, wrapped in
some formatting) available for read() and write() after normal open()?
Then not only cp but even cat file1 > file2 will work perfectly, not to
mention tar, ftp, http, etc. If someone wants to deal with streams, he can
just open the stream that he wants using its complete name (with new
fd_open() or open() on "file/stream", or whatever else, other than normal
open()).
Of course, it will break backward compatibility (for normal
open()/read()/...) on some files that programs are supposed to read
without any way to detect "trailing garbage" (text, for example, will have
all streams appended but, say, image files will remain usable with
existing software).
-- Alex---------------------------------------------------------------------- Excellent.. now give users the option to cut your hair you hippie! -- Anonymous Coward
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