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Read-write tarfs
From: |
Ludovic Courtès |
Subject: |
Read-write tarfs |
Date: |
Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:14:00 +0100 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.3.28i |
Hello,
An "alpha version" of a read-write tar filesystem is available at [1]. It
can be used to "mount" almost any tar file, even compressed tar files. If
you think typing "tar czvf file.tar.gz all my files" is too old-fashioned,
you can even use it to create new tar files:
$ settrans -ca new /hurd/tarfs -cz newfile.tar.gz
$ cp -r all my files new/
$ syncfs new
Well, doing so is not really more efficient, but it's different at least. ;)
In theory, it could also be used to compile a program without having to
actually unpack it:
$ settrans -ca chbouib /hurd/tarfs -j --volatile chbouib-0.1.tar.bz2
$ cd chbouib
$ ./configure && make && cd .. && settrans -g tmp
However, since gcc uses mmap () and since tarfs does not implement
netfs_S_io_map, that doesn't work.
It uses a gzip and a bzip2 stores, ie. libstore modules that can be used
to transparently read and write gzip/bzip2 files, which were implemented
using zlib and libbz2.
A very basic test suite (shell script) is included in the tarball.
However, tarfs *really* needs more testing. I would also be glad to get
some feedback about the code itself (caching, for instance, could probably
be implemented in a better way).
I think it would be nice to make tarfs part of the GNU tar package which is
probably the best place for it. On non-Hurd based systems, the 'configure'
script could simply disable its compilation.
Thanks,
Ludovic.
[1] http://people.type-z.org/ludo/hurd/
- Read-write tarfs,
Ludovic Courtès <=
- Re: Read-write tarfs, M. Gerards, 2003/01/21
- Re: Read-write tarfs, Alfred M. Szmidt, 2003/01/21
- Re: Read-write tarfs, Niels Möller, 2003/01/21
- Re: Read-write tarfs, Ludovic Courtès, 2003/01/21
- Re: Read-write tarfs, Alfred M. Szmidt, 2003/01/22
- Re: Read-write tarfs, James Morrison, 2003/01/22
- Re: Read-write tarfs, Joshua Judson Rosen, 2003/01/22
- Re: Read-write tarfs, Alfred M. Szmidt, 2003/01/23