Ideas for changes to Unix filesystem

[Michael Kandall]

In article <G2%&-2#@uzi-9mm.fulcrum.bt.co.uk> igb at fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) writes:
>In article <BZS.91Feb4003139 at world.std.com> bzs at world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>> Think of fixed length record files and inserting into them, it would
>> be nice to be able to just copy/munge the block numbers rather than
>> the data.
>
>What's needed is a version of streams for filesystems.  With Multics,
>the One True Operating System, you could attach modules (== push
>modules) such as vfile_ to provide additional functionality over and
>above that which you got from initiate_segment_ and its friends.  What
>would be nice with Unix would be ISAM, record mode, whatever modules you
>could push on top of the mmap interface.  Once you can map files into
>your address space most things can be done on top of that.
>
>ian

I believe SVR4 has this.  In SVR4's enhanced STREAMS, I believe you can
push STREAMS onto arbitrary file descriptors.

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Michael Kandall
Independent Consultant
Nihon Silicon Graphics