[geeks] Versioning FIlesystem

[vance at neurotica.com]

On Thu, 22 May 2003, Jonathan C. Patschke 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.

Doesn't all the automation go out the window if you decide to mount the
filesystem on another OS?  I mean, if the versioning is in the spec for
the filesystem, then wouldn't a driver for that filesystem in any new OS
would have to support it?

Peace...  Sridhar