[geeks] Versioning FIlesystem

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Thu, 22 May 2003 vance at neurotica.com wrote:

> Couldn't you put kernel-level filesystem support in that, every time you
> write a file, writes a file with a newer version number?

Yes, but I'd do it as part of the way the system maps namespaces, rather
than in the driver for a specific file system.  The problem becomes that
you'd have a second "special" character in addition to '/'.  The ':'
character makes the most sense.  The point being that you'd get
versioning 'for free'.  Of course, you'd probably also need to hack the
stat() system call to appropriately show the amount of consumed space
for the most recent version in a field separate from the total space,
and, at that point, you'd have to add that support to ls and such.

I think it's very-certainly doable.  And, if I weren't already hacking
on a couple of really deep projects, I'd contemplate adding support for
that to Linux or OpenBSD.  OpenBSD'd probably be easier, from what I've
heard of people who've tried to work on the Linux source code.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke   )  "Lawsuit...why doesn't it surprise me that more
Thorndale, TX      (    than half of that word is Suit?"
                    )                                  --George Adkins