Hi Randy, > > When it goes to install these, e.g. `pacman -Su', it checks > > dependencies and then assumes that all of those files will remain > > for the duration of the installation, which can be quite a while. > > How long is "quite a while"?
Say 60 seconds. > I'm not the authoritative voice on this, but the answer would seem (to > me) to be subjective based on how long quite a while is. In a range > of a few hours or less, I would say there is no violation. But it's the open(2), for example, that's the cache lookup that determines if there was a hit or miss. If /var/cache's contents "may be expired in an application specific manner, by the system administrator, or both" then a readdir(2) isn't a "hit" in the sense the file's content may be retrieved, just that it existed at that time. Some /var/cache contents might be being processed by cron, or low free space might trigger a selected purge of /var/cache, and FHS seems to allow for files being used by a running program to be removed. That's fine if they're already open, but programs need to expect be written with it in mind. If you think the FHS says otherwise I'd like to hear the argument, and either way it suggests the FHS needs clarifying. Cheers, Ralph. _______________________________________________ fhs-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/fhs-discuss
