Re: ls /dev

[Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>]

On Fri, Jul 28, 2000 at 11:14:35PM +0200, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> 1)
> UI app is used to show number (+ size, maybe) of all files in every
> subdirectory.
> 
> dir a is on ext2fs. dir b is on ftpfs.
> 
> How do you tell user app that it's ok to ckeck subdir a,
> but not ok to check subdir b ?

What makes you think it is not okay to check subdir b?

If any clients thinks that ftpfs should not be entered, then by all means
make the client configurable to take this into account.

There is no global parameter that can know about all server/user
preferences. (What about user written translators, for example?)

> 2)
[...]
> 3)
[...]
> 4)
[...]

> There must be some way for program to tell this difference.
> This has nothing to do with ``translatorness'' of the file.

Well, if you really think that those are important factors, write a
translator that is stacked on the root node and filters file request in some
configurable manner, providing dummy information for inconvenient nodes.
The Hurd translator concept allows this, so you can do it if you think it is
a good idea without imposing your view on other people.

I think it is reasonable to change mc to show translator settings, and make
it user configurable if a translated node should be stat()ed or not.
But I don't think it is reasonable to seperate any of the cases you consider
above. However, we don't need to agree, because the Hurd is such a fantastic
thing to allow for arbitrary extensions :)

Thanks,
Marcus
 

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org Check Key server 
Marcus Brinkmann              GNU    http://www.gnu.org    for public PGP Key 
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de,     marcus@gnu.org    PGP Key ID 36E7CD09
http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/       brinkmd@debian.org