[Slightly further OT] Re: Spaces in filenames [was: Has a Debian developer ever unintentionally wiped out user files like Apple?]

["Keith G. Murphy" <keithmur@mindspring.com>]

Andrew Suffield wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Nov 05, 2001 at 01:58:51PM +0100, Sebastian Rittau wrote:
> > So_what_Live_with_it_Spaces_in_filenames_are_not_only_valid_but_
> > generally_a_Good_Thing_Why_should_I_cripple_my_filenames_by_not_using_
> > them.txt
> 
> Learn the difference between a filename and contents. The above should
> have been text placed in a file entitled 'daft-rant.txt'.
> 
This points up something I've thought for some time: perhaps it would be
A Good Thing for a filesystem to have a place for descriptive and other
file metadata.  Folks usually use long names because they have a desire
to *describe* the file.

Apparently, NTFS already does something similar.

Are there any free file systems that do?  It looks like ReiserFS is
moving in a direction that would let you do this (among many other
things).

Imagine:

# ls FOOBAR --description
FOOBAR    This will, when run by root, destroy all your filesystems.

Or, even nicer:

# vi FOOBAR --XMLmetadata
<XML>
<DESCRIPTION>
This will, when run by root, destroy all your filesystems.
</DESCRIPTION>
<AUTHOR>
I. M. Ahacker
</AUTHOR>
</XML>

Or being in Midnight Commander and having the description show up as a
mouseover-activated hint.

Yes, I know it would be abused and make life much more complicated.

Hope I didn't increase the noise level; just thought it was an
interesting subject.