Re: [Info-mtools] Inconsistent results between kernel vfat and mtools

[G.W. Haywood]

Hi there,

On Tue, 21 Nov 2023, Alexander Huemer wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 01:03:16PM +0000, G.W. Haywood wrote:
> > On Tue, 21 Nov 2023, Alexander Huemer wrote:
> > ...
> > > ...
> > ...
> Thanks for the quick response!

Well I hope it's going to prove useful...

> > > I am observing inconsistent results between the kernel vfat
> > > implementation and mtools.
> > >
> > > -04ab6b3bd6f6689fe102a3531d15e8b1  003290.DSL
> > > -50bb89afd3ddb2d7fe62946ee0d780f3  013179.dsl
> > > -14c3e2c6c7c69d69c60e8a43b9c11ae1  023193.dsl
> > > +b16167d015a5a427088eb0200a5ba051  003290.DSL
> > > +00cd9c5a6948e029b310615b0fb074c2  013179.dsl
> > > +b42bd0a7f6cf5a81da57a6008436e5fa  023193.dsl
> > > ....
> > > I believe that the results yielded by vfat are correct and the results
> > > yielded by mtools are incorrect.
> > >
> > > Does the image file have some unusual properties that push mtools to
> > > undesired behavior? User error?
> > ......
> > Here, mcopy seems to have no trouble, but mdir does:
> > ...
>
> I am not a mtools guru.

Nor am I!

> Maybe a listing should be produced without '-a ::', I am not sure.

Hmmm, you may have something there.  It looks like the files are being
treated as having the 'hidden' attribute set, but if that's the case
mtools doesn't seem to behave as described in the man page.  If I use
the '*' character to specify all files then according to the man page
the hidden attribute should be ignored.  But I see no output with ::*,
nor by specifying the name of the file, unless I use the '-a' option:

8<----------------------------------------------------------------------
$ mdir -i IBM_3174_DSL_FC9021_N52.0.img ::*
mdir: File "::*" not found
$ mdir -i IBM_3174_DSL_FC9021_N52.0.img ::VOLUME.LAB
mdir: File "::VOLUME.LAB" not found
$ mdir -i IBM_3174_DSL_FC9021_N52.0.img -a ::*
 Volume in drive : has no label
Directory for ::/

VOLUME   LAB       512 1986-06-06  11:47 
MAINTRK  DIA     15360 1986-06-06  11:47 
MRNLEV   ECN       512 1986-06-06  11:48 
003290   DSL    180224 1986-06-06  11:48 
013179   dsl    198144 1980-00-00   0:00 
023193   dsl    157696 1980-00-00   0:00 
CSCMCNME CMD      4168 1980-01-01   0:00
        7 files             556 616 bytes
                            656 896 bytes free

$ 
8<----------------------------------------------------------------------

I guess this hasn't been exercised so well with VFAT filesystems as it
has with plain old DOS FAT. :(

Having said that I'd be more concerned about the incorrect md5sums.

Are you sure that your copy of the image is the same as the file that
you linked to in the file share?  The md5sum of the image that I have
here is b08a47d04c7d96d5e5fdc77d5888071e.  Also I'm kinda puzzled why
some of the file extensions are shown in lower case.

--

73,
Ged.