Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: give us a hand with arch

[Harald Meland]

[Ethan Benson]

> On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 12:59:51AM +0200, Harald Meland wrote:
>> For example, on this Debian box Emacs is by default set up to create
>> backup files by renaming.  While I'm not claiming to have looked very
>> closely at xattr semantics, I would guess that
>> 
>>   rename(file, file~)
>>   open(file)
>>   ... write new contents ...
>>   close(file)
>> 
>> would leave the user with the original file-id xattr in file~ (which
>> by default would be ignored by tla), and no corresponding xattr in
>> file.  This would be bad.
>
> no, rename() supports xattr.

Uhm, yes.  But does open(2) automatically add the same xattrs to the
file it just created?  I think (and certainly hope ;-) not.

(BTW: This argument applies equally well to Andrea's "separate
meta-data stream in the inode" mirage.  Such a feature would, for the
very same reasons outlined in my pseudo-code example above, require
changes to (lots of) tools before things start working the way he
claims they will.)

> however file copying requires xattr support.

Ahh, good, my hope was justified. :-)

> in any event it should be configurable somehow, so if the user doesn't
> want xattrs used they won't be.

Then we agree.
-- 
Harald