Re: [PATCH] IFS: Inode FileSystem

On Mon, 6 Jun 2005, [iso-8859-1] Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
> Scott Long <scottl_at_samsco.org> writes:
>> Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
>>> This is primarily an API issue, not a filesystem layout issue.  We
>>> already have at least one filesystem with 64-bit inodes (msdosfs).
>> What do you mean it's not a layout issue?  We can't make incompatible
>> layout changes whever we feel like it, or else transportability of
>> filesystems is completely lost and everyone who wants to boot more
>> than just the Last And Greatest on their system winds up with
>> unnessary pain.
>
> Changing the stat(2) API to support 64-bit inodes does not require us
> to simultaneously change the on-disk layout of every filesystem we
> support to use 64-bit inodes.  However, if we want to fully support
> filesystems with 64-bit inodes (such as FAT32, which currently uses a
> convoluted hack to map the 64-bit offset of a directory entry into a
> 32-bit inode), we need to change the API.
>
> The ironic thing is that we already have a 64-bit stat(2)...  for
> Linux ABI compatibility.
>

Ah, I see your point.  Well, it's not too late to address this for 6.0,
and it might be a really good idea to think about it now.  Is there 
anything else that should be bumped along with it?

Scott