From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 7 13:08:25 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E531E1065670; Tue, 7 Apr 2009 13:08:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fbsdlists@honeyguide.net) Received: from jail0064.vps.exonetric.net (jail0064.vps.exonetric.net [82.138.248.239]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA1588FC1E; Tue, 7 Apr 2009 13:08:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fbsdlists@honeyguide.net) Received: from [10.221.119.32] (tmo-100-80.customers.d1-online.com [80.187.100.80]) by jail0064.vps.exonetric.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id CD0E1D4B0F; Tue, 7 Apr 2009 12:50:33 +0000 (GMT) Message-Id: From: Stephan Lichtenauer To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v930.3) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 14:50:15 +0200 References: <1fe1d5d60903210422g70efef15hdd685695cdf8df3c@mail.gmail.com> <1fe1d5d60904020904ya6dcb00h54a54d6a00e2bd0@mail.gmail.com> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.930.3) Cc: Gabriele Modena , Robert Watson Subject: Re: GSoC: Semantic File System X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:08:26 -0000 Gabriele, Robert, Am 02.04.2009 um 19:26 schrieb Robert Watson: > > In the BeOS model, or my reinterpretation based on something I read > a long time ago and then presumably had dreams about, the split is a > bit different: the file system maintains indexes of extended > attributes, which are written by applications in order to expose > searchable material. For example, a mail application might write > out each message as a file, and attach a series of extended > attributes, such as subject line, date, author, etc. These extended > attributes are then indexed automatically by the file system in > order to allow queries to be evaluated. I don't recall how queries > and results are expressed, and in particular, whether the queries > are processed by the file system (possibly exposed via special APIs > or the name space) or userspace (accessing special files maintained > by the kernel that are the indexes). > > It's also worth observing that one of the authors of BFS was Dominic > Giampaolo, who now works on Apple's HFS+, and implemented fsevents > there as part of their Spotlight project. > Maybe you also might be interested that there is a PDF document (formerly book) from Dominic available describing the BeOS file system in great detail: http://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/practical-file-system-design.pdf Additionally, there seems to be a GSoC project to create something like Spotlight for Haiku, the open source BeOS clone. You could browse through the haiku-developer mailing list archives at http://www.freelists.org/archive/haiku-development , the thread where this has been discussed is titled "Need Some GSoC Advice" with the first mail from 21 March. Stephan