Re: ext2fs enhacement/fix [re: shrinking directories]

Jan Kara (jack@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz)
Mon, 20 Jul 1998 23:57:10 +0200


> This could perhaps be satisfied by slight of hand and numerous calls
> to link().
>
> i.e.
> 2. becomes copy all info from directory -> .directory.new and possibly sort it
> 3. check change time stamp, do a special block on access to directory
> so all read/write requests to directory goes to .directory.new,
> rename directory -> .directory.old and .directory.new -> directory.
> 4. unlink all entries in .directory.old.
> 5. go on with life.
>
> This could require filesystem magic, such as a special extentions to
> all directory-related e2fs calls so that for the time of the copying
> from directory -> .directory.new an open in directory would also cause
> a new directory/file to be linked to director.new/file, and it would
> break programs that depended on link count being a specific number on
> open. I think this could be worked out somehow, but I don't have the
> skills to do it :( It would be handy, though. I don't know if this is
> the best way to go about it.
>
The solution also might some dcache magic (I'm not sure just know. It's
midnight and I'm too lazy to examine it right now.) I think such solution
will need a lot of work (and probably some magic).

Bye Honza.

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.altern.org/andrebalsa/doc/lkml-faq.html