Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 12:17:03 +1100 From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> To: scott@statsci.com, terry@lambert.org Cc: bde@zeta.org.au, current@freebsd.org, julian@ref.tfs.com, phk@critter.tfs.com, scrappy@ki.net Subject: Re: PATCH: small, syntax changes for devfs Message-ID: <199603230117.MAA00596@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
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>> > wd0s1 is there, and opening it would reveal wd0s1[a-h], but this isn't
>> > much use. Perhaps wd0s1 should be a directory containing [a-h]. I
>> > prefer a flat namespace.
>>
>> Doesn't wd0s1 need to be a device file so you have something to run
>> disklabel against?
Sort of. You would normally run disklabel on wd0s1c. wd0s1c and wd0s1
are currently just aliases for each other if a label exists (if there is
no label, than at most wd0s1 exists). This is mainly for historical
reasons. The directory layout would be:
wd0
|
/-----------------------------\
wd0s1 wd0s2 wd0s3 ... wd0s30
| ... ... ...
/---------------------------------\
wd0s1a wd0s1b wd0s1c=wd0s1(?) ... wd0s1h
>This is really irrelevant to flat vs. non-flat name spaces. There is
>no reason why a device file can't be a directory and a file at the
>same time. Device reads and writes don't care about seek offsets
The semantics aren't clear. wd0s1 would be a container for both
wd0s1[a-h] and the raw bytes on the device. I like ordinary read()
to work on directories.
Bruce
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