From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 7 13:16:15 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 2BE87106566C for ; Tue, 7 Apr 2009 13:16:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 03F2D8FC13 for ; Tue, 7 Apr 2009 13:16:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [65.122.17.41]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 9B17846C08; Tue, 7 Apr 2009 09:16:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 14:16:14 +0100 (BST) From: Robert Watson X-X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Stephan Lichtenauer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <1fe1d5d60903210422g70efef15hdd685695cdf8df3c@mail.gmail.com> <1fe1d5d60904020904ya6dcb00h54a54d6a00e2bd0@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Gabriele Modena 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 13:16:15 -0000 On Tue, 7 Apr 2009, Stephan Lichtenauer wrote: > 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. Actually, I have a original copy of the book on the bookshelf behind me. :-) Robert N M Watson Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge